


Re 





PRE ER NE LLLP a a SEEN S SPR I EI AE IP ENN SRI DIE NTN LIES EE TE NS PETS 














THE WHISTLER BOOK 


The Art Lovers’ Series 


Each volume profusely illustrated with full-page plates 


- 


List of Citles 


THE RAPHAEL BOOK . ; : 
By Frank Roy Fraprie 

THE WHISTLER BOOK . : 
By Sadakichi Hartmann 


ARTS AND CRAFTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
By Julia de Wolf Addison 


THE MADONNA IN ART 
By Estelle M. Hurll 


JAPANESE ART 
By Sadakichi Hartmann 


THE BRITISH MUSEUM ‘ : : 
By Henry C. Shelley 


FRANK BRANGWYN AND HIS WSRe 
By Walter Shaw Sparrow 


LALANNE ON ETCHING 
By Maxime Lalanne 


FAMOUS BEAUTIES IN ART ‘ : ° 
By Armand Dayot 


(Published under the imprint of the St. Botolph Society) 


¥ 
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 


INCORPORATED 
53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 











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Che 
Whistler Bonk 
AA Monograph of the Life and Position in 


Art of James McNeill Whistler, together with 
a Careful Study of his more Important W orks 


BY 


SADAKICHI HARTMANN 


Author of ‘‘ A History of American Art,” ‘ Japanese Art,"” etc. 
With fifty-seven reproductions of Mr. Whistler's 
most important works 
SN 


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CAS 


L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
BOSTON # MDCCCCXXIV 





Copyright, 1910, 
By L. C. Pace & Company 
(INCORPORATED ) 


Entered at Stationers Hall, London 





All rights reserved 


Made in U.S. A. 


New Edition, August, 1924 


PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY 
BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. 


TO 
THOSE PAINTERS 
UPON WHOSE SHOULDERS 
THE BLACK MANTLE OF 
WHISTLER’S MUSE 
MAY FALL 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I. Inrropucrory — Wire CHRYSANTHEMUMS . 
II. QuartTieR LATIN AND CHELSEA 
III. Tue Burrerryy . 
IV. THe Art or OmMIssIon 
V. On Licur anp ToNnE PROBLEMS 
VI. SympuHonies 1n INTERIOR DECORATION . 
VII. Vistons AND IDENTIFICATIONS . 
VIII. In Quest or Line EXPRESSION 
IX. Moss-LikE GRADATIONS 
X. WHISTLER’s ICcONOCLASM 
XI. As His Friznps Knew Him . 
XII. Tue Story or tHe BEeavurTIFUL 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PRINCIPAL MaGazINE ARTICLES 
PRINCIPAL PAINTINGS 
NocTURNES . 


eee eM eh et 


PAGE 


100 
121 
147 
168 
182 
209 
233 
253 
259 
262 
265 
267 





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 
PorrTrRAIT oF JAMES McNeitu WHISTLER, BY BOLDINI (See 
page 230) . : ; : He . Frontispiece 
Tue Sevr Portrait oF 1859 : ; ; : . - 8 
Pen AND INK SxketcH, MapEe at West Point. : irae | 
Drawina MApE FOR THE UNITED STATES COAST AND 
GEODETIC SURVEY . ; : ; / : : re 
PortTRAIT SKETCH OF FantTIN—LATOUR . : , 2 14 
“ HomMaGr 4 Drenacrorx,” By Fantin-LatourR . . 17 
THe WoMAN IN WHITE . : : : é ; : ae 
Owned by John H. Whittemore. 
ARRANGEMENT IN BuAck: F. R. LEYLAND : he Guest 
National Gallery, Washington. 
meen Vemrranet aan re Pe YT ee 9 OB 
Waprinc WuHarrF (ETCHING) . : , . : , Pere 
HARMONY IN GREEN AND Rose: THe Music Room . 44 
Owned by Frank J. Hecker. 
Lance LEIZEN OF THE Stx Marks: PuRPLE AND Rose . 49 
Owned by John G. Johnson. 
Tue PRINCESS OF THE PORCELAIN LAND . : : ce) 
National Gallery, Washington. 
SympHony IN Wuirts, II: Tue Littte Waite Girt ene Da 


Owned by Arthur Studd. 
On tHE BALCONY: VARIATIONS IN FLESH-COLOUR AND 


GREEN : J ? > : : 7 : : Ps 54 
National Gallery, Washington. 
NocrurRNE IN BLAcK AND Gotp: THE FAauuiInGc Rocker . 58 


Owned by Mrs. Samuel Untermyer. 
NocrurRNE IN BLUE AND GoLD: Oxp BATTERSEA BRIDGE 67 
Tate Gallery, London. 
vii 


Vili List of Dlustrations 


PAGE 
NocTURNE IN GRAY AND GOLD: CHELSEA, SNOW . Ee | 
Nocrugngr In BLUB AND SILVER. ° 2° °)) eee 
LADY IN \GRAY Si) 83 
Courtesy of the M erenelian M aba, Ne ew York.’ 
‘¢ T ANDALUSIENNE ”” eee Pete Mee. 
Owned by John H. Wiusepore 
Sir Henry Irvine as Purr Il... ; hers f 


Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New o Fork: 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WuItTE: Lapy Mrux (No.1) 94 


ARRANGEMENT IN BLAck: SENOR PABLO SARASATE ein ty 
Carnegie Art Institute, Pittsburg. 

SHutTTeER DrecoRATION, PEAcocK Room . ; é . 104 

ARRANGEMENT IN GRAY AND GREEN: Miss ALEXANDER . 109 

EacGte WuHarF (ErcHING) . : 4 ha Ei Ahi hy ca a 

AT THE PIANO . E : : ‘ . ; : : . 122 


ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BRown: Miss Rose Corprr 128 
Owned by Richard A. Canfield. — 


ARRANGEMENT IN Buiack: Lapy ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL | 
(THe YELLOW BUSKIN) .. . Sp Ree GR Se Se eee 
Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia. 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GOLD: CoMTE DE MonTEsS- 


QUIOU . ‘ : : ; .. 42 
Owned by Richard us Ranpoid. 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY: THOMAS CARLYLE . 144 


City Art Gallery, Glasgow. 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY: THE ARTIST'S 


MoTHER P : : : : : : . 146 
Luxembourg Gallen, Pane. 

“LA VIEILLE AUX Loquses’”’ (EtcHING) . . . . 149 

STREET IN SAVERNE (ETCHING) . Mr em hse eset oh 

PortraiT oF Drovet (ETCHING) . : : ; ; ~' 153 

Buack Lion WHarF (ETCHING) . : ; PN RES 


WaPPING, ON THE THAMES (ETCHING) a eS ER a 


List of Illustrations ix 








PAGE 
Outp HuncERFoRD BripGEe (ETCHING) Arita (U4 Fee ip 
Tue SILENT CANAL (ETCHING) . ot at ie ihe . 164 
Virw oF AMSTERDAM (HTCHING) .. 3 ‘ : (ieAGG 
Nocturne (LITHOGRAPH) : yl Re Bi eae pe rg 
LirtLe Rost or Lyme Reais ‘ ‘ ; ! ‘ < (kb 
Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 
Stupy or Nupe Fieure (CHatK Drawinc) . ... 176 
Paste. STupy . ; 4 : : : : Picea ahs . 178 
Owned by Th. R. Way. 
eceewee VemiCh (DARTH) £6 so ee ee ee’ 182 
Owned by Howard Mansfield. 
Tue JAPANESE Dress (PASTEL) . LOO RAT OL ea -. 186 
Owned by Howard Mansfield. 
Mr. Kennepy: Portrait Stupy AS di ra eae (as comeaeg 627%. 
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York. | 
THe Live Burner (ETcHING) . A : pees toe 
PorTRAIT OF STEPHANE MaALLARME (LITHOGRAPH) . . 209 
ARRANGEMENT IN FLESH-COLOUR AND BLAcK: THEODORE 
DuRET : : d : : : ; S ; . 214 
Tue Unsare TENEMENT (ETCHING) . , ; ; e220 
In THE SUNSHINE (ETCHING) : ‘ é : ; a 226 
Tue Poou (ETcHING) . ; : : ; i : Moy Ay 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE: ‘ L’AMERICAINE”’ 238 
eaetipoimn (PaCHING) ~ . 2. 6 Lo wy 246 


NoctuRNE IN BROWN AND SILVER: OLup BATTERSEA 
BRIDGE : “ : . x i ; A . 248 








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Che Whistler Bonk 





CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY 
WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUMS ! 


THE white chrysanthemum is my favourite 
flower. There are other flowers, I grant, per- 
haps more beautiful, which I cannot help ad- 
miring, but the white chrysanthemum some- 
how appeals to me more than any other flower. 
Why? That is more than I can tell. The un- 
conscious movements of our soul activity can- 
not be turned into sodden prose. What would 
be the use of having a favourite flower if one 
could give any reason for liking it? It merely 
reveals that part of our personality, not to be 
logically explained, which rises within us like 
the reminiscences of some former soul exist- 
ence. There are colours and certain sounds 


1 Published originally in “‘ Camera Work,” 1903. 
1 


2 The Whistler Book 


and odours which effect me similarly. When- 
ever I gaze at a white chrysanthemum, my 
mind becomes conscious of something which 
concerns my life alone; something which I 
would like to express in my art, but which I 
shall never be able to realize, at least not in the 
vague and, at the same time, convincing man- 
ner the flower conveys it ‘to me. I am also 
fond of displaying it occasionally in my but- 
tonhole; not for effect, however, but simply be- 
cause I want other people to know who I am; 
for those human beings who are sensitive to 
the charms of the chrysanthemum, must hail 
from the same country in which my soul abides, 
and I should like to meet them. I should 
not have much to say to them — souls are not 
talkative — but we should make curtsies, and 
hand white chrysanthemums to one another. 

Whistler was busy all his life painting just 
such white chrysanthemums. You smile? 
Well, I think I can persuade you to accept 
my point of view. 

You are probably aware that Whistler was 
opposed to realism. ‘The realists endorse 
every faithful reproduction of facts. Also, 
Whistler believed all objects beautiful, but 
only under certain conditions, at certain 
favoured moments. It is at long intervals 
and on rare occasions that nature and human 


White Chrysanthemums 3 


life reveal their highest beauty. It was 
Whistler’s life-long endeavour to fix such 
supreme and happy moments, the white chrys- 
anthemums of his zsthetic creed, upon his can- 
vases. Have you never seen a country lass 
and thought she should be dressed up as a 
page — her limbs have such a lyrical twist, as 
George Meredith would say—she should 
stand on the steps of a throne, and the hall 
should be illuminated with a thousand candles? 
Have you never met a New England girl, and 
thought that she was ill-suited to her present 
surroundings, that she would look well only 
standing on the porch of some old Colonial 
mansion, in the evening, when odours of the 
pelargoniums and gladioli begin to fill the 
garden? Have you not noticed that a bunch 
of cut flowers which looks beautiful in one vase 
may become ugly in another? And how often 
has it not happened to all of us that we were 
startled by a sudden revelation of beauty in a 
person whom we have known for years and 
who has looked rather commonplace to us? 
Suddenly, through some expression of grief or 
joy, or merely through a passing light or 
shadow, all the hidden beauty bursts to the sur- 
face and surprises us with its fugitive charms. 
Whistler’s “At the Piano,” “The Yellow 
‘Buskin,” “ Old Battersea Bridge,” “ Chelsea: 


4 The Whistler Book 





Snow,” are painted in that way. ene 
you imagine his “ Yellow Buskin Lady ” 
any other way than buttoning her gloves, aid 
glancing back, for a last time, over her 
shoulder, as she is walking away from you into 
grey distances! That peculiar turn of her 
body reveals the quintessence of her beauty. 
And that is the reason why Whistler. has 
painted her in that attitude. Thus every ob- 
ject has its moment of supreme beauty. In 
life these moments are as fugitive as the frac- — 
tions of a second. ‘Through art they can 
become a permanent and lasting enjoyment. 
The ancient Greek believed in an ideal 
standard of beauty to which the whole universe 
had to conform. The modern artist, on the 
other hand, sees beauty only in such moments 
as are entirely individual to the forms and con- 
ditions of life he desires to portray. And as it 
pains him that his conception of beauty will 
die with him, he becomes an artist through the 
very endeavour of preserving at least a few 
fragments of it for his fellow-men. With 
Whistler, this conception was largely a sense 
for tone, a realization of some dream in black 
and silvery grey, in pale gold or greenish blues. 
A vague flare of colour in some dark tonality 
was, to him, the island in the desert which he 
had to seek, unable to rest until he had found 


White Chrysanthemums 5 


it. He saw life in visions, and his subjects 
were merely means to express them. In his 
“Lady Archibald Campbell” he cared more 
for black and grey gradations and the yellow 
note of the buskin than for the fair sitter. 
The figure is, so to speak, invented in the 
character of the colour arrangement. Whis- 
tler once said he would like best to paint 
for an audience that could dispense with the 
representation of objects and figures, with all 
pictorial actualities, and be satisfied solely with 
the music of colour. 

And why should we not profit by his lesson, 
and learn to look at pictures as we look at the 
flush of the evening sky, at a passing cloud, at 
the vision of a beautiful woman, or at a white 
chrysanthemum! 


CHAPTER II 
QUARTIER LATIN AND CHELSEA 


Durine Jean Francois Raffaelli’s sojourn 
in America I had occasion to ask him the rather 
futile question of how long it took a painter 
in Paris to become famous. Of course I re- 
ferred to a man of superior abilities, and meant 
by fame an international reputation. He an- 
swered twenty years at least, and I replied that 
about twenty years more would be needed in 
America. 

Whistler had a long time to wait before 
fame knocked’ at his door, although he had a — 
local reputation in London and Paris at forty. 
He was known as a man of curious ways, 
and an excellent etcher; but, with the excep- 
tion of two medals, he had received no honours 
whatever for his paintings. His work still 
impressed by its novelty; but he had not yet 
captivated the public. He still had to fight 
_ for recognition, and, as long as a man has to 
do that, he is neither a popular nor a success- 
ful man. 

6 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 7 


Toward the middle of the seventies recog- 
nition appeared to come more readily. He 
seemed to know everybody of note, and every- 
body seemed to know him. His writings and 
controversies attracted considerable attention, 
his supremacy as an etcher had been admitted, 
and_his pictures became more widely known. 
He had gathered around him a number of 
wealthy patrons, who were connoisseurs and 
keen appreciators of his talents. He was so 
successful financially in the latter part of his 
life that he had residences and studios in Paris 
as well as in London. At Paris his head- 
quarters were in the rue du Bac. In London 
he had various quarters, —on Fulham Road, 
Tite Street, Langham Street, Alderney 
Street, St. Regents Street, The Vale, etc. 
Going from one place to the other as his 
moods dictated to him, with an occasional 
sketching trip to Venice, to Holland or the 
northern parts of France, he lived the true 
life of the artist, quarrelled with his friends, 
delighted his admirers with the products of his 
fancies, and astounded the intelligent public 
on two continents with the caprices of his tem- 
per. Strange to say, even at that time, his 
best work had already left his easel. He was 
busy with minor, but not less interesting, prob- 
lems and devoted most of his time to etchings, 


aS The Whistler Book 


pastels and lithographs. But it was at this 
time that his “ Ten O’clock ” and “ The Gentle 
Art of Making Enemies” were published; 
and when his “ Carlyle’ found its way to the 
Glasgow City Gallery, and “ The Portrait of 
the Artist’s Mother” was purchased by the 
Luxembourg Gallery at Paris. 

Comparatively little is known of Whistler’s 
private life. I wonder how many of his ad- 
mirers, excepting his personal friends, were 
acquainted during his life-time with the fact 
that he was married, and could tell whom he 
had married. He remained a bachelor until 
his fifty-fourth year, when he married the 
widow of his friend EK. W. Godwin, the archi- 
tect of the “White House.” She was the 
daughter of John Bernie Philip, a sculptor, 
and was herself an etcher. They were married 
on Aug. 11, 1888. Eight years later his wife 
died, May 10th, 1896. 

How this man of moods and capricious tastes 
got along in married life the general public 
has never found out. His friends assure us 
that it was a happy union and that he was 
deeply devoted to his wife. He has painted 
her repeatedly, but the pictures do not betray 
any domestic secrets to the public. Although 
Whistler was fond of notoriety, and managed 
to keep himself continually before the pub- 




















THE SELF PORTRAIT OF 1859. 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 9 


lic, — in the fullest limelight, so to speak, — 
he never allowed personal news and the details 
of his everyday life to claim the attention of 
the public. All his innumerable feuds and 
press displays were related to his work, — to 
his completed pictures and theories of art. He 
liked to play upon his personality, but only as 
far as the artist was concerned. He was pe- 
culiarly free from the taint of exploiting his 
own domestic affairs. He hated biographies 
and all references to his family life. Even in 
his feuds with his old friends, F. R. Leyland, 
and his brother-in-law, Seymour Haden, when 
he brutally dragged apparent private matters 
into the glare of publicity, the discriminating 
observer will notice that his controversies, sar- 
casms and interpretations refer solely to “ art 
situations”? and never descend to the low 
depths of personal abuse. 

James McNeill Whistler was born on July 
10th (some say July 11th), 1834, at Lowell, 
Mass. One of his ancestors, a Dr. Whistler, 
is frequently mentioned in Pepys’ delicious 
diary. He was baptized James Abbott Whis- 
tler in the Church of St. Anne, at Lowell. 
His father, Major George Washington Whis- 
tler, was a civil engineer and, during the first 
eight years of James’ life, moved from Lowell 
to Stonington, Connecticut, thence to Spring- 


10 The Whistler Book 


field, Massachusetts, and, finally, in 1842, 
went to Russia to superintend the construction 
of the railroad from St. Petersburg to Mos- 
cow. The following year the family sailed 
from Boston to make their home in St. Peters- 
burg. 

This was the first impression the boy Whis- 
tler received from the outside world, and no 
doubt the trip across the Atlantic and the 
sojourn in a foreign country made a lasting 
impression upon him. Russia, with its quaint 
old civilization and touches of barbaric splen- 
dour, was the country to excite the imagination 
of any boy, and the change from a New Eng- 
land village life to the metropolitan turmoil 
of St. Petersburg would have left imperishable 
traces in any receptive mind. The father was 
paid lavishly and the boy was brought up in 
luxury. 

The first report of any art talent in the boy 
can be found in the reference, mentioned by 
several biographers, to his taking lessons at the 
Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Peters- 
burg. It had probably no particular bearing 
on his career, since art teaching in Russia was 
traditional, and probably consisted of nothing 
but drawing from wooden models and plaster 
easts. It informs us, however, of the fact that 
he became familiar with the rudiments of 





PEN AND INK SKETCH, MADE AT WEST POINT. 


Cr 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 11 


drawing at an early age. Of by far greater 
importance to his development were his visits 
to the Hermitage. There he saw for the first 
time Velasquez and he learnt to differentiate 
between painters who could paint and such 
who could only tell a story in line and colour. 

On the death of the father, April 7th, 1849, 
the family returned to the United States and 
settled in Stonington, Conn., and young 
Whistler attended school at Pomfret, Conn. 
In 1851, seventeen years old, he entered the 
United States Military Academy at West 
Point and was enrolled as James McNeill 
Whistler, taking his mother’s maiden name as 
a middle name. Like Poe, he does not seem 
to have been over-fond of a routine military 
career. No doubt something of the artist’s 
temperament had awakened in him, and, like 
all young talents, he objected to regulated 
study, and tried to satisfy the vague aspira- 
tions, of his unsettled consciousness with work 
that was more congenial to him. 

He left West Point in July, 1854. The 
technical discharge was “ deficiency in chem- 
istry,” but it was probably general unfitness 
for a career of discipline and exactness. 
Through some influence he received an ap- 
pointment in the drawing division of the 
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey at 


12 The Whistler Book 


Washington, D.C., at the salary of $1.50 a 
day, but he resigned two months later. The 
government records show that he worked only 
six and a half days in January and five and 
three-quarter days in February. He appar- 
ently had no taste for map designing and 
bird’s-eye views. It is said he paid more atten- 
tion to the deliberate drawing of little trees 
and detail than to the typographic facts. 

His military career had come to an end; he 
had to do something else, and he felt that he 
had to become an artist at any price. Money 
was not over abundant in the Whistler family, 
but there was sufficient to allow him a few 
years’ leisure to study art wherever he chose, 
and so he went to Paris, and joined the youth- 
ful band of artists, who fought for modernism 
and a new technique, and the glory of the 
métier, with an enthusiasm, a bravery and 
devotion that has rarely been encountered. 
‘There he lived the regular student life for four 
years. He entered the atelier of Charles 
Gleyre, but only stayed for a short while. He 
preferred to look about for himself. At one 
time he and young Tissot made a copy of 
Ingres’ “ Angelique.” 

Whistler arrived in France shortly after the 
coup détat. Paris was not then what she is 
to-day. None of the chain of boulevards 


“XUAUNS OLLAGOAD ANV LSVOO SALVLS GALINA AHL YOU AGVW ONIMVUG 





ace SLotpS MOMRENEES NRRRISSRRE I S A NRC ONRESSBR SNS tS ERE ARE ARE IN I I SEIS ROS 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 13 


around the centre of the town, not even the 
boulevard of St. Michael, which became the 
great thoroughfare for artists, were in exist- 
ence in their present condition. But Whistler 
had come at the time when Paris was being 
reconstructed into one of the most beautiful 
cities of the world, and, when the Imperial 
régime unfolded its full splendour. Paris 
became intoxicated with its own beauty, and 
the social life blossomed forth in all its ele- 
gance and frivolity. | 

During 1857-58 Whistler had a studio in the 
rue Compagne Premiere, boarding in Madame 
Lalouette’s pension in the rue Dauphine. For 
some time he also shared quarters with Fantin- 
Latour, who, with Legros, was his most inti- 
mate friend during his student years. They 
saw each other daily, and it was on one of these 
occasions that he made the humourous sketch 
of Latour, depicting him on a cold winter 
morning seated in bed, drawing, all dressed, 
with a top hat on his head. 

They were the days of Henri Murger’s “ La 
Vie Bohéme,” of bon camaraderie; eccentric 
days when every man sought to make his mark 
by peculiarities of dress, soft felt Rubens’ hats, 
velvet cloaks with the ends thrown over the 
shoulders, and other exotic garments. In one 
exhibition, in sheer audacity of youth, Whis- 


vied The Whistler Book 


tler appeared dressed in a Japanese kimono. 
Think of a man in a kimono in 1855! Whistler 
at that time was a true Bohemian. His little . 
studio was his workshop, his temple, his par- 
lour, his playhouse and his dormitory. He 
frequented the queer, interesting quarters that 
students seek, — quaint old cafés where food 
was good as well as cheap, and character abun- 
dant. 

What is there so fascinating about the Bohe- 
mian’s life? The Philistine, I fear, generally 
considers him an eccentric, indolent man, with 
no thought for the morrow, no notion of econ- 
omy, no home save the place which affords him 
temporary shelter. He never stops to think 
that the Bohemians are the men who make our 
songs, who paint our pictures, chisel marvel- 
lous creations out of wood and stone, compose 
our sweetest poems and write our newspapers. 
It is a grievous mistake to assume that they 
are merely a lot of idle, luckless fellows. They 
are men with brains of good quality, and 
hearts in the right place. All classes and. 
trades of men have burdened the world with 
their wants and woes. Not so the Bohemian. 
He, too, has his heartaches and bitter disap- 
pointments, but who ever hears of them? The 
humourous tale over which you laugh so heart- 
ily, recounting the adventures of a poet in 


8 gy hp bh Ug 


ai Mian yh oma resting 
aed: ‘A 


Rr Saad 


‘nlc inno PO Pistinnse 


ee 
S538 Ew 


fe Oh alten 
; i 
an cacy gm im tice: Me 
Po Te oyna atinataed C Raper 


a NS ge AEM A 9s SR 





PORTRAIT SKETCH OF FANTIN-—LATOUR. 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 15 


search of a publisher, had the author’s per- 
sonal experience for a basis. He could not 
sell his poems, but needed bread; so, out of 
his misfortune, he had good cheer. ‘The ordi- 
nary man, rebuffed by fortune, would sit down 
and mourn himself into illness.) The Bohe- 
mian utilizes these very reverses, and both he 
and the world are the merrier eventually for 
them. He lives in a world distinct from that 
of common men. ‘Talent, love of comradeship, 
a sunny disposition — these are the magnets 
that will draw one toward it. It has its obli- 
gations, its trials, tts code of honour, rigid as 
the most unbending militarism; but there is 
charm of companionship and an absence of 
jealousies and pettiness within it that makes 
you powerless to rid yourself of its enchant- | 
ments. The Bohemian’s life is apart from 
yours, but why chide him for it? He builds 
- on the ruins of no other man’s life, he feeds on 
no man’s scandals, he exults in no man’s mis- 
fortunes, but goes on his way, imbibing the 
sweetness of life from every flower, and, in 
his own way, scattering the perfume broad- 
cast. He does half our thinking and origi- 
nates two-third of all the movements for the 
social reclamation of the world. He is no 
hypocrite before the mighty, nor heartless in 
the face of the unfortunate. He covets no 


16 The Whistler Book 


man’s goods, but lives his own quiet, interest- 
ing, exquisite life. He asks only a share of the 
sunlight of life. In du Maurier’s “ Trilby ” 
we find a sympathetic description of the art life 
of that period, but also a rather despicable type 
of a man, “ Joe Sibley,” by name, who always 
pretends but never does a thing and who was 
meant for a ludicrous satire on young Whis- 
tler (a character which was eliminated on 
Whistler’s request from the second edition). 

It is easy to draw a mental picture of him 
as he looked at that time. I see him studying 
in the Louvre, in a loose black blouse with low 
turned down collar and a soft black hat on his 
long, slightly curled hair, lost in wonder before 
a painting by Leonardo; or strolling along the 
Boulevards, cane in hand, ogling the beautiful 
women, and dreaming of designing some dress 
for the Empress Eugenie, passing by in an 
open phaeton. And how enthusiastic he got, 
no doubt, over some Japanese print or Chinese 
vase In some curio shop. 

A certain trigness, smartness, acquired very 
likely at West Point where the cadets change 
their white duck trousers ‘several times a day, 
induced him, even at this time, to take special 
care over the fit of his coat. 

In 1859 he went with several fellow stu- 
dents, Fantin-Latour, Legros, and Ribot, to 


*HNOLVI-NILNVaA A IOUIVTIAd V AODVWNOH 
NS 








Quartier Latin and Chelsea 17 


Bonvin’s studio to work from the model, under 
the direction of Courbet. At that time he was 
interested in types. He painted a “ Fumette,” 
a little grisette of the Quartier Latin, and the 
“Mother Gerard,” who in her younger days 
had been a maker of pretty verses, but, reduced 
m circumstances, had become a flower vender 
at the Bal Bullier. Among his friends and as- 
sociates we find the names of Legros, Cordier, 
Duranty, the etcher Bracquemond, inventor of 
the “pen and ink” process, de Balleroy, 
Champfleury, Manet and Baudelaire. They 
were all young men of talent, plein d’avenir. 
Fantin-Latour made a group-portrait of them, 
including Whistler and himself, seated and 
standing, assembled about a portrait of Dela- 
croix. ‘The canvas was exhibited at the Salon 
of 1864 as an “ Hommage a Delacroix.” 

Whistler’s step-sister had married Seymour 
Haden, the etcher, and Whistler, paying them 
a visit in 1859, stayed in London. The four 
years in Paris had matured him, and he knew 
how to accomplish something beyond the rou- 
tine studio work. In 1862 he exhibited for the 
Royal Academy. It was his “ At the Piano,” 
which, if not a masterpiece, is already a true 
and individual work of art. 

Courbet still had a strong hold on him. He 
spent two summers with him in Trouville and 


18 The Whistler Book 


may have derived his first lessons as a mystifica- 
teur, which part he played so successfully dur- 
ing life, from the French painter, for Courbet 
was a poseur throughout, who assumed a par- 
ticular kind of dress, and who was not satisfied 
merely with painting pictures that offended 
the Academy and conventional taste, but made 
a special effort and took special pleasure in 
shocking the bourgeoisie. 

Whistler also made his first trip to Holland 
during these years, and became enchanted 
with Rembrandt and Vermeer, but took a 
great dislike to Van der Helst. In 1859-60 
youthful efforts of his had been refused at the 
Paris Salon; the same happened again in 
18638, but he was one of the men who scored a 
success at the Salon des Refusées. A number 
of talented painters, and among them men of 
genius like Manet, Cazin, Degas, Harpignies, 
Vollon, Pissaro, Jongkind and Bracquemond, 
tired of the cliquism and jury of the regular 
Salon,—a story which repeats itself every- 
where, — decided to arrange their own exhibi- 
tion. Napoleon III, in his nonchalant way a 
true patron of art, issued an order to arrange 
the exhibition of “ revolt” in the same build- 
ing as the official exhibition. ‘The exhibition 
was a success, and even the Empress Eugenie 
and the court came to see it. This is really of 





Owne d by John H. Whittemore 
THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 19 


no significance, as nobody bought anything; 
but it sounds well, and biographers should 
never neglect to mention such incidents. 

One thing is certain: Whistler’s picture, 
“The White Girl,” even with Manet’s “ De- 
jeuner sur lHerbe” in the same room, at- 
tracted an unusual share of attention. Zola, 
in “ L’(iuvre,” says that the crowd laughed 
in front of “ La Dame en Blane.” Desnoyers 
thought it “the most remarkable picture, at 
once simple and fantastic with a beauty so 
peculiar that the public did not know whether 
to think it beautiful or ugly.” Paul Mantz 
wrote in the Gazetie des Beaux-Arts that 
’ it was the most important picture in the exhibi- 
tion and called the picture ‘a ‘‘ Symphonie du 
Blanc” some years before Whistler adopted 
that title. 

The exhibition of this picture represents, in 
a way, the turning point in Whistler’s career. 
It was a steady ascent ever after. Before this 
he was unknown, and exposed to the manifold 
privations and vicissitudes of an artist’s career. 
Many a day he had gone hungry and fre- 
quently could not paint for lack of material. 
Now things began to run a trifle smoother, al- 
though sales were still rare and money scarce. 
His lodgings in 7 Linsey Row (now 101 
Cheyne Walk) were extremely simple and 


20 The Whistler Book 


his studio consisted of a second-story back 
room. 

During the next three years he worked hard, 
and finished a number of pictures that since 
then have made history. They are all in a 
lighter key and of brilliant colouring. The 
problem he seemed to be most interested in 
was to reproduce in relief the charm of diversi- 
fied colour patches as seen in Japanese prints. 

He continued to see things in this way until 
he made a trip to South America in 1866. 
Feeling, perhaps, slightly discouraged, or in 
need of some recreation, he.and his brother set 
out for Chili, under the pretence of joining the 
insurgents a la Poe and Byron, although I 
hardly believe that a man of thirty-two really 
capable of such a wild goose chase. At all 
events, when they reached Valparaiso the re- 
bellion had ceased and instead of handling a 
musket “ our Jimmie” opened his paint box 
instead. 

The result was startling. Impressed by the 
new sights of southern scenery, and in par- 
ticular of the translucency and subdued bril- 
liancy of the sky at night, he painted one of 
his finest nocturnes, the “ Valparaiso Har- 
bour,” now at the National Gallery of Art. 
The darkness of night to a large extent bars 
colour, and furnishes a kind of tonal veil over 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea — 21 


all objects; but in southern countries the 
nights are clearer and brighter and, although 
forms and colours are indistinct, they remain 
more plainly discernible than in the blackness 
of our Northern nights. 

After his return to London he worked hard 
at solving the problem of creating tone which 
would suggest atmosphere with as little sub- 
ject matter as possible. Four years passed be- 
fore he held the first exhibition of a “ Varia- 
tion” and “ Harmony.” He now began to feel 
his own strength. He felt that he had done 
something new and had the courage to coin 
his own titles. The method of classifying his 
pictures as Harmonies and Symphonies, Ar- 
rangements, Nocturnes, Notes, and Caprices, 
was entirely his own invention and in his 
earlier career did much to attract attention to 
his work. One year later, in 1872, exhibiting 
several symphonies, he included for the first 
time an impression of night under the title of 
“ Nocturne.” The years 1870-77 were prob- 
ably the busiest and the most important ones 
of his whole career. They produced not only 
the ‘“ Nocturne,” but also the ‘“* Peacock 
Room” and the painting which is generally 
conceded to be his masterpiece, the “ Portrait 
of the Artist’s Mother.” 

Success and fame at last knocked at his 


22 The Whistler Book 


door. Mr. F. R. Leyland, the rich ship-owner 
of Liverpool, proved a generous patron. Be- 
tween 1872 and 1874 he ordered portraits of 
himself, Mrs. Leyland and the four children. 
Whistler made long visits at Speke Hall, 
Leyland’s home near Liverpool. His paint- 
ings began to sell more readily than hereto- 
fore and several orders for interior decoration 
had come in, among them the decoration of the 
music room of the famous violinist Sarasate’s 
home in Paris. He was willing to work at 
anything as long as he could carry out his own 
ideas. He invented schemes for interior deco- 
ration and also once tried himself as an illus- 
trator, when he made exquisite drawings of the 
vases, plates, cups of blue and white Nankin 
for the catalogue of Sir H. Thompson’s col- 
lection of porcelain. (Ellis and Elvey, Lon- 
don, 1878.) 

After leaving 7 Linsey Row, during the 
years 1866-1878, Whistler lived in several 
other houses situated in the Chelsea district, 
for like so many of us that have got used to a 
certain part of the city, he could never get 
away from it. The most pretentious of these 
abodes was the “ White House ” which became 
one of the centres of attraction in the art life 
of London. 

‘There he gave his famous Sunday morning 





National Gallery, Washington 


ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK: F. R. LEYLAND. 








N 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 23 


breakfasts, which Mr. Harper Pennington 
describes so amusingly: “'They were always 
late in being served, outrageously delayed 
without apparent cause. It was no uncommon 
thing for us to wait an hour, or even two, for 
the eggs, fish, cutlets, and a sweet dish of 
which the meal consisted. A bottle of very 
ordinary white wine was our only drink. The 
whole thing, in fact, was an “ arrangement ”’ 
— just a colour scheme in yellow to match his 
“blue and white” porcelain and his “ yellow 
and blue” dining room. The room itself was 
unique in its effective and independent style 
of decoration. It was entirely carried out 
after his own designs, even to the painting of 
the exterior. And the environment, the 
Thames, the old church of Chelsea with its 
square tower, the peculiar shaped bridge of 
Battérsea, the lights of Cremorne in the dis- 
tance, all furnished interesting pictorial topics 
and played an important part in the painter’s 
mise en scene. 

His neighbours added to the lustre of this 
period. In the same district at that time lived 
Rossetti, Swinburne, George Meredith and 
Carlyle, and Whistler was on friendly footing 
with all of them. 

Exhibitions of his work were now a regular 
occurrence. In 1874 he held his first “.one 


24 The Whistler Book 


man’s show” of thirteen paintings and fifty 
prints at number 48 Pall Mall, London. In 
1877 he arranged an exhibition in the Gros- 
venor Gallery. Among the exhibits were 
“The Falling Rocket” (Nocturne in black 
and gold) which brought about the Ruskin 
attacks, and consequently the famous libel 
_ suit, Whistler v. Ruskin. One can hardly 
imagine, to-day, why the picture should have 
created so much commotion; but it was a 
decided innovation at that time, an event in a 
way ushering in a new era of art. Now this 
particular style of representation has any 
number of disciples, and we have accepted it as 
one of the principal assertions of modern art. 
Strange, that history always repeats itself. 
We should know by this time that our tastes 
and the tastes of time are not absolute, and 
that our sense of beauty is likely to be affected 
by circumstances to an extent which we cannot 
realize. There was a time, and not so long 
ago, when Gothic buildings were regarded by 
the man of culture much as dandelions are re- 
garded by the gardener. For years the very 
name Nocturne was a reproach. -It was sup- 
posed to be the product of idiosyncrasy and 
nonchalant audacity, the work of a decadent 
period in art, which, because it was decadent, 
could not be good, for everything that looked 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 25 


like a Whistler was regarded as a note of. 
decadence. It was an argument in a circle, 
no doubt; but such arguments seem most con- 
vincing when once a prejudice exists in the art 
world. Only gradually did people begin to 
see more than cleverness in his products. 

Oscar Wilde was a constant friend of 
Whistler’s at this time. The friendship was 
still young and, for a while, the two were in- 
separable. The author of “ Dorian Grey” 
spent hours in Whistler’s studio, came re- 
peatedly to the Sunday breakfasts, and pre- 
sided at Whistler’s private views. Whistler 
went out and about with him everywhere. But 
Whistler gradually came to feel that Wilde, 
in spite of his brilliancy and wit, lacked funda- 
mental purpose. Wilde talked constantly 
about art, but, in the end, Whistler concluded 
that Wilde, like most modern authors, knew 
very little about it. 

The days of the Renaissance, of versatility, 
of talent and appreciation seem to have 
passed. Whistler easily tired of his friends 
and, although this friendship had lasted for 
years, he finally dropped Wilde without much 
ado. A critic of “'The London Times” has 
summed up the difference between the two in 
the following words: 

“With a mind not a jot less keen than 


26 The Whistler Book 


Whistler’s, Oscar Wilde had none of the con- 
victions, the high faith for which Whistler 
found it worth while to defy the crowd. 
Wilde had posed to attract the crowd. And 
the difference was this, that, while Whistler 
was a prophet who liked to play Pierrot, 
Wilde grew into Pierrot who liked to play the 
prophet.” | 
Like most artists who have suddenly sprung 
into fame, Whistler had lived beyond his 
means. He was fond of comfort and elegance, 
and allowed himself the fulfilment of any whim 
as long as it granted him genuine pleasure, 
as “art and joy should go together.” 
_ ‘The auction sale of the contents of his home 
in 1879, and the sale of his paintings at 
Sotheby’s in February, 1880, were perhaps not 
entirely caused by financial difficulties. ‘They 
may have been prompted in an equal degree by 
a desire to make a change and break the 
routine of the studio life. He told, however, 
to his friends in his inimitable way how the 
sheriff’s officer called upon him with a writ, 
and the last bottle of champagne was brought 
out of the cellar for that worthy’s delectation. — 
In Venice, where he went in September, 1879, 
he seems to have been in straitened circum- 
stances for quite a while. He lived in modest 
quarters and dined in cheap, dingy places. 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 27 


These were his “ polenta and macaroni days,” 
and, in a way, a repetition of his Paris stu- 
dent’s life, only much harder to bear as he was 
older (forty-five) and used to luxury. 

No matter what his reason may have been 
for breaking up his bachelor establishment it 
was the second turning point in his career. 

Painting did not play quite as important a 
part in Whistler’s life after his Venetian so- 
journ. He still painted a number of portraits, 
among them the “Sarasate” and “ Comte 
Montesquiou,’” but he was more active as an 
etcher, lithographer, pamphleteer, lecturer and 
teacher. Orders were scarce at all times. The 
only regular portrait orders he had in the first 
half of the eighties were those of Lady Archi- 
bald Campbell, wife of the Duke of Argyll; 
and of Lady Meux, who liked her first portrait, 
in a black evening gown with a white opera 
cloak against a black background, so well that 
she had herself painted three times in succes- 
sion. Whistler’s sense of beauty was a strong 
feature in his work. Maybe it was not the 
sense of beauty an Englishman would like. 
He looked for a pictorial aspect, rather than 
the “lady ” in his sitter; and in England the 
“ lady ” is the thing to secure in a portrait of 
a woman. 

He returned to London in 1880, but stayed 


98 The Whistler Book 


only a short while. During the next ten years 
he had no permanent home; like a nomad he 
flitted from city to city, from studio to studio 
through England, France and _ Belgium. 
Finally he found some sort of a resting place 
in the rue du Bac 110, for many years his Paris 
home. It was a two-story house with a garden 
enclosed by a wall, as secluded a spot as one 
could find in the gay and noisy city. He was 
always fond of gardens of flowers. “In the 
roses of his garden he buried his sorrows,” one 
of his most talented pupils, EK. H. Wuerpel, 
tells us, in his little brochure “My Friend 
Whistler.” | 

In the meanwhile his London Exhibitions 
became more and more numerous. During 
the next fifteen years the following eight ex- 
hibitions are on record. 

1881 — Jan. — An exhibition of fifty-three 
pastels at the Fine Art Society in Bond St., 
London. 

1883 — Feb. — Fifty-one etchings and dry 
points exhibited in Bond St. Gallery, London. 

-1884 — May — Harmonies — Notes — 
Nocturnes — shown at the Dowdswell Gallery, 
London. At the same time an exhibition took 
place in Paris and Dublin. They were ar- 
ranged according to his own idea of exhibit- 


ing. 


s 
a 
ii 
i 
i: 
oh 
Ris 
} 
t 
F 


ee 


A a om als Bs SY 





JO (ETCHING). 


= 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 29 


1884 — Nov. — 'I'wenty-five works sent to 
the exhibition of the Dublin Sketching 
Club. 

1886 — May — A second series of Notes — 
Harmonies — Nocturnes shown at the Dowds- 
well Gallery. 

1889 — The most representative exhibition 
of his works, since that of 1874, at the College 
for Working Women, Queen Sq., London. 

1892 — Mar. — An exhibition of forty-four 
nocturnes, marines and chevalet pieces for 
which Whistler prepared the catalogue. At 
the Goupil Galleries, Bond Street, London. 

1895 — Dec. — Exhibitions of seventy litho- 
graphs, London. 

In the years following his death, as is usually 
the case, 1904-05, occurred the most important 
assemblage of his works — the memorial ex- 
hibition of Glasgow, Boston, Paris and Lon- 
don. 

Of special interest are Whistler’s first 
American exhibits. At the first exhibition of 
the Society of American Artists at the Kurtz 
Gallery, New York, 1878, he was represented 
by a “ Coast of Brittany.” In the autumn of 
1881 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine 
Arts he exhibited the portrait of his mother, 
which was also seen the following spring at 
the Society of American Artists in New York. 


30 The Whistler Book 








Sheridan Ford once asked him why he did not 
exhibit more frequently in America. Whistler 
answered: “ I don’t know, they will not allow 
me to take them across the ocean. You see, 
I don’t own my pictures. I sold most of them 
long ago to people who think more of them 
than they do of me. I wrote and asked for two 
or three of them to take over, and the answers 
I received were to the effect that I could have 
them to exhibit here, but not to exhibit in 
America. Why? Because the owners are 
afraid of the ocean. I said I would insure the 
pictures, at which of course they laughed. I 
may go and I may not. A good many people 
in America don’t like me, and I am not there 
to fight them as I can fight my enemies here. 
I don’t mind having enemies where I can get 
at them. I like the pleasure of whipping 
them; but these fellows in America have it 
all their own way. There is no record, and I 
am at a constant disadvantage.” 

In 1884 he was elected President of the 
Royal Society of British Artists, but soon 
quarrelled with the old-fashioned element 
among its members, and the whole affair de- 
generated into one of those disputes upon 
which such copious light has been shed in “ The 
Gentle Art of Making Enemies.” 

The enforcement of the Whistlerian policy 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 31 


of elimination and arrangement brought dis- 
aster upon the Society. ‘The annual sales fell 
from £8,000 in 1885 to under 1,000 in 1888. 
It was time for the ideal exhibitor and man- 
ager of mise en scénes to retire. And so he 
did, if not accompanied by a cavalcade of 
buglers blowing a blast with, at least, as 
much noise and controversy as he could con- 
jure up in these art-forsaken and colourless — 
days. 

It is not until towards the close of his life, 
in 1898, that we find him again at the head of 
an artistic corporation, when the International 
Society was proud to acknowledge his leader- 
ship. In 1880 Whistler made his début in 
Germany at the International Art Exhibition 
of Munich. The result was not a flattering 
one. The jury officiating on that occasion 
established a peculiar claim to the affectionate 
recollection of posterity by awarding a Second 
Class medal to the “ Portrait of the Artist’s 
Mother,” now in the Luxembourg. Of course 
a jury has perfect rights to make awards as it 
pleases as long as the verdict is a competent 
and impartial one, but Whistler by this time 
was too well-known, and one can hardly blame 
him that he wrote the following sarcastic but 
unusually dignified letter to the Secretary of 
the Central Committee. 


32 The Whistler Book 


“Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of 
your letter, officially informing me that the 
committee awards me a second class gold 
medal. Pray convey my sentiments of tem- 
pered and respectable joy to the gentlemen 
of the committee, and my complete appreci- 
ation of the second-hand compliment paid 
me. 

“And I have, Sir, 
“The honour to be 
“Your most humble obedient servant, 
“J. McNemi WHiIsTier.” 


After 1895 Whistler ceased to hold exhibi- 
tions. The death of his wife brought about a 
long silence, and little was heard of Whistler. 
He had laid aside his jester’s bells and cap 
and ceased pamphleteering and posing in pub- 
lic. He had become a kind of recognized insti- 
tution in the art world, occupying a place 
apart from the masses of his contemporaries. 
Men of very dissimilar esthetic convictions 
agreed in regarding him as a painter of ex- 
ceptional ability, and he had a solid and appre- 
ciative following. 

We in America wondered what had become 
of him. Occasionally a newspaper notice in- 
formed us that he had taken up teaching, or 
false reports crossed the ocean that he had be- 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 33 


come a symbolist. He himself was inactive, 
as far as the public was concerned. 

I suppose he was at last tired of notoriety 
and the cares of public life. He had played 
his part and had played it well. Intimate 
friends tell us that he worked as hard as ever. 
He still had many problems to solve, if for 
nobody else but himself, and was satisfied that 
he could afford to devote his time to them. 
Financially he was fairly well situated; but 
he spent money extravagantly, and the two 
residences and various studios he kept up in 
Paris and London proved at all times a heavy 
drain on his income, which was derived entirely 
from his art products. He left about ten thou- 
sand pounds, a rather small sum, considering 
the prices he received for some of his paint- 
ings. 

His school in the Passage Stanislaw, oppo- 
site Carolus Duran’s home, was neither a 
necessity nor a particular pleasure to him. He 
opened it for the sole benefit of one of his 
favourite models, Mme. Carmen Rossi, who, 
as a child, had posed for the painter. She 
received the entire profits and it is said that 
during the three years that the school existed 
she made enough to retire in comfort. The 
school was opened in the autumn of 1898 and 
closed in 1901. He was too impatient to be a 


34 The Whistler Book 


good teacher; he simply came there and 
painted and the pupils saw him paint and 
learned what they could, just as did the ap- 
prentices of the Old Masters. He taught 
solely the science of painting, neither colour 
nor composition. He had an abhorrence of 
talking art, and one of the anecdotes he liked 
to relate was that he had known Rossetti for 
years and “had talked art many, many times 
but painting only once.” 

He even refused to discuss technicalities. 
There was no talk of pigments, mediums, var- 
nish or methods of applying them. He worked 
with his pupils, that was all. Like the appren- 
tices of old they had to pick up their knowl- 
edge themselves, and if he found something 
that he liked his usual praise consisted of “ Go 
right on,” or “ Continuez, continuez.” On the 
wall was tacked his second series of proposi- 
tions which endorsed his constant advice to 
pupils: “If you possess superior faculties, so 
much the better, allons, develop them; but 
should you lack them, so much the worse, for 
despite all efforts you will never produce any- 
thing of interest.” Good common sense, but, 
after all, a slight return for the tuition fee. 
It should have induced most pupils to pack up 
their paint boxes and return home. 

As Leon Dabo, in his lecture on “ Whistler’s 


Quartier Latin and Chelsea 35 


Technique” at the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art, has so well observed: “ Nothing is more 
absurd than the notion, so widely promul- 
gated by elderly maiden ladies who misspend 
their energies writing about paintings and 
painters from Cimabue to Whistler, that a 
work of art is produced as the logical result 
of an apprenticeship served in an art school. 
There probably is much juxtaposition of this 
belief — we all know the painters whose only 
reason for lowering intensely blue sky is be- 
cause it is too blue; the painters who labour, 
heaping up chunks of paint until it looks 
‘right; ’ but with Whistler a canvas advanced 
in an entirely different manner. He knew 
scientifically that he could use only so much 
of a given tone if he wished to produce colour, 
and he knew what other tone to place in juxta- 
position, what parts of the canvas must hold 
the spectator’s eye, in varying degrees of in- 
terest, in order to obtain the effect he desired 
to give and its use in the butterfly, the exact 
spot of a sail on the ocean, a light on the hori- 
zon, all these, to many insignificant objects 
and spots, nevertheless do their work, either to 
re-vivify an otherwise large surface or to hold 
the eye momentarily interested, until the am- 
bience was obtained. And this science — the © 
effect of line and colour on the eye, — is prac- 


) 36 The Whistler Book | 


tically unknown to painters, is untaught in our 
art schools. ‘This mastery over his means and 
material Whistler possessed in a higher degree 
than any other modern painter.” 

In 1902 he once more took a house in Lon- 
don and selected Cheyne Walk, an old man- 
sion covered with ivy, near the Thames in the 
Chelsea district, where he had spent so many 
years during the beginning of his career. 
Friends could not imagine why he came back 
from Paris to London, as he disliked the place, 
its climate and its art. They simply forgot — 
that he was a lover of atmospheric effects, and 
that London fogs and the Thames were, after 
all, nearest to his heart. In the summer of 
1902 he contemplated a short trip to Holland 
in the company of Mr. Ch. W. Freer, but was 
taken sick in Flushing. After consulting some 
doctors in The Hague, he recovered sufficiently 
to return to London and set to work, but only 
one year in the old haunts was granted him. _ 

He had just entered upon his seventieth 
year when he died suddenly on July 17, 1903. 
He suffered from some internal complaint, the 
exact nature of which is unknown. He had 
felt ill for several days, but on the seventeenth 
his condition had so improved that he ordered 
a cab for a drive. On leaving the house he was 
seized with a fit, but recovered; a short while 





Whistler 1895 


Saat 





WAPPING WHARF (ETCHING). 





Quartier Latin and Chelsea 37 


later he had another spasm, which killed him. 
He was interred (on the 22nd) in the family 
burial plot in the churchyard of the old church 
at Chelsea (which his mother had regularly 
attended), near the grave of Hogarth. The 
coffin, covered with purple pall, was carried to 
the church followed by the honorary pall- 
bearers and relatives on foot. The pall-bearers 
were: Sir James Guthrie (president of the 
Royal Scottish Academy) ; Charles W. Freer, 
George W. Vanderbilt, Edwin A. Abbey, 
John Lavery (of the R. S. Academy) and 
the art critic, Theodore Duret; all personal 
friends of Whistler’s. 

The relatives present included the Misses 
Philip and F. L. Philip, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil 
Lawson, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Whibley and 
Edwin W. Godwin. Although no announce- 
ment of the funeral was made in London 
papers many distinguished friends and ac- 
quaintances crowded the church. Beautiful 
wreaths were sent by Vanderbilt, Lawrence, 
Alma 'Tadema and various federations and 
societies. Those present were: George W. 
Vanderbilt, Mr. Joseph Pennell, Rev. H. C. 
Leserve of Boston, Johnson Sturges, R. F. 
Knoedler and I. M. B. MacNary of New 
York City; M. Dumont of the International 
Society of Painters; Marcus Bourne Huish, 


: 38 The Whistler Book 


editor of the “ Art Journal;”’ Thomas Arm- 
strong; and Alfred Kast (A. R. A.). 

When a reporter called at the house July 
18th he was informed that the artist had left 
stringent instructions that no information 
whatever regarding his illness or death should 
be given either to his friends or the newspapers. 
He remained true to his eccentricities, or 
rather to his peculiar personality. Even in his 
exit from this life to the thrones of glory be- 
yond, he endeavoured to make it as odd and 
picturesque as possible. He played his part to 
the last. And it was one of the noblest parts 
ever played by man. | 


CHAPTER III 
THE BUTTERFLY 


Tue famous butterfly monogram, origi- 
nally a decorative combination of the letters 
“J. M. W.,” which evolved into a decorative 
design of a butterfly, enclosed in a circle, as it 
appeared in his “ Sarasate” and “ Carlyle,” 
and, frequently, a mere stencil-like silhouette 
as seen in his correspondence, began to appear 
in Whistler’s pictures in the late sixties. The 
“Symphony in Gray and Green — The 
Ocean” (painted in 1866) was probably the 
first important canvas in which it was intro- 
duced. In his earlier pictures he had made 
use of an ordinary written signature as most 
painters use. It is strange that it took an 
artist of Whistler’s sensitiveness so long to 
realize the incongruities of these crude calli- 
graphic displays. They disfigure many a good 
picture and smack of the materialism of this 
age. Every picture should have a signature, 
if for no other reason than to prove the authen- 
ticity at some future time. But surely it can 

39 


40 The Whistler Book 


be treated with more discretion than it is 
to-day. The Old Masters frequently handled 
it with ingenuity and some degree of modesty. 
It was the Japanese artist who gave it a deco- 
rative significance. The red cartouches of 
Hiroshige are known to every print collector. 
He considered it a part of the picture, a colour 
note or vehicle of balance in an empty space, 
as important a detail of composition as any 
other. 

Whistler treated his monogram in the same 
conscientious and picturesque fashion. He 
used it with preference in his symphonies, noc- 
turnes and large portraits, but, at times, also 
in white, as on a rail post in the lower right 
corner of his “ Bognor.” He handled it with 
more than ordinary reverence, as everything 
that pertained to the exploiting of his own per- 
sonality. He often introduced it at the first 
painting to judge the effect, and, of course, he 
wiped or scraped it out over and over again 
until he procured the desired effect. He con- 
tinually made slight changes in the design, he 
toyed with it as with some curio, elaborated it 
in many ways, and, eventually, even bestowed 
a sting upon the insect, as it appears in his 
“ Gentle Art of Making Enemies.” 

The butterfly teaches a lesson. It proves 
that an artist can be self-assertive, arrogant 


The Butterfly 41 


and yet refined. Whistler thus introduced a 
method of picture signing that should be gen- 
erally adopted. Every artist should have his 
own monogram, and use it with discretion. 

But it has even a deeper significance in 
Whistler’s life. It is in a way a symbol of his 
evolution as a painter. As we study his work 
we find that the butterfly monogram does not 
appear before Whistler freed himself from 
foreign influences, and invented an individual 
and independent style of his own. The butter- 
fly may well stand for the full awakening and 
realization of his own faculties. Did he not 
say himself: 

“In the pale citron wing of the butterfly, 
with its dainty spots of orange, he saw the 
stately halls of fair gold, with their slender 
saffron pillars, and was taught how the deli- 
cate drawing high upon the walls should be 
traced in slender tones of orpiment and re- 
peated by the base in notes of graver hue.” 

Like all painters Whistler had to learn his 
trade, and then find his peculiar way of ex- 
pression. It took him well nigh a quarter of a 
century. He entered the studio of Gleyre in 
the summer of 1855 as a young man of twenty- 
one, and was nearly forty-seven when he had 
finished the “ Portrait of the Artist’s Mother ” 
and had painted a few nocturnes. All his 


42 The Whistler Book 


earlier pictures remind us of some other mas- 
ter. “The Music Room” recalls Stevens, 
“The Blue Wave: Biarritz” the forceful 
style of Courbet, and “The White Sym- 
phony” even the light manner of Alma 
Tadema. 

Charles Gleyre was an excellent draughts- 
man of the Ingres school, but all he could 
teach his pupils was to draw. That he had 
once been capable of some finer appreciation 
of colour and atmosphere, students of art may 
notice in his “ Evening,” painted in 1843, but 
he became, like so many other painters of this 
period, the victim of the academic style. 
Outline drawing reigned supreme, there was 
room for nothing else, and it was surely not a 
congenial environment for young Whistler, 
who, even at that time, differed with the preva- 
lent ideas of art. Drawing, however, is one of 
the most important factors of the technique of 
painting. Velasquez even thought it was the 
most important one, and Whistler, with the 
peculiar tendency of his art, was, no doubt, 
fortunate that he reached Paris while draughts- 
manship was still honoured and not neglected, 
as in the later days of the impressionists. A 
student in Paris either becomes an enthusiastic 
worker from the nude, making one study after 
the other, like all those Julian and Colarossi 


The Butterfly 43 





pupils — or he gets so imbued with the art 
atmosphere that he sets about on conquests of 
his own, and the city of Seine, with its mu- 
seums, monuments, artists, population, pleas- 
ures and sights is Just the right place for “ free 
lance”’ education. Whistler chose the latter 
way. 

The canvases of this period show strong in- 
fluences of Stevens and Courbet. He must 
have been enamoured with the style of that 
great painter of woman, as he was undoubt- 
edly with the rude sincerity of Courbet. If 
any man could paint at that time it was Cour- 
bet. He was the simplifier of planes and 
values, who advocated frankness and freedom 
of expression, and detached painting from all 
the absurdities and abstractions of the classic 
and romantic periods. From him Whistler 
learned to put on his pigments in a bold, vig- 
orous way. He was never fond of brushwork, 
but at that time he liked to pile it on in a flat 
and solid manner. Only gradually his brush- 
work became thinner and thinner, invisible and 
almost untraceable, carrying out his maxim: 
“A picture is finished when all traces of means 
used to bring about the end have disappeared.” 
As is the case with all great paintings, one 
must forget all about technique. 

From Stevens he learned, as he often said 


44 The Whistler Book 


in later years, all that could be learned from 
him. I believe that the influence was subtler 
and more spiritual, and one that lasted all his 
life. Stevens was for him what the chart from 
which we learn history in school days remains 
for us. We can never forget it and entirely 
get away fromit. In the beginning, of course, 
it was a technical preference. Like Stevens, 
he used precise outlines, a profusion of details 
and yet with all a poetic atmosphere that is 
produced principally by a beautiful juxtaposi- 
tion of colour values. Eiven to-day few of 
Whistler’s earlier canvases have more admirers 
than the “ Harmony in Green and Rose,” per- 
haps better known as “'The Music Room ” 
(in the possession of Frank J. Hecker). It 
was painted in 1860, in the London home of 
Haden, the painter-etcher. ‘This picture was 
first known as “ The Morning Call.”” In the 
corner of the room a mirror reflects the profile 
of a woman, who is not represented in the pic- 
ture. ‘This is a portrait of Lady Seymour 
Haden, Whistler’s stepsister, with whom he 
was lodging at the time. In front of the win- 
dow hang a pair of white curtains with a green 
and red flower pattern. A young woman 
(Miss Booth, a relative of the Hadens) in a 
black riding habit, which she holds up with 
her gloved hand, stands on the dark red car- 





J. Hecker 


v 


Own ed by Frank 


ROOM. 


MUSIC 


THE 


HARMONY IN GREEN AND ROSE 


& 





The Butterfly 45 


pet. In the background sits a little girl read- 
ing. 

Another more exotic influence became pal- 
pable in his work soon after, and exercised an 
almost despotic control for several years. At 
the Paris Eaposition Universelle of 1868 
Whistler became acquainted, for the first time, 
with Japanese art. The Parisian artists, par- 
ticularly the set with which Whistler was ac- 
quainted, got colour mad. ‘The suggestiveness 
of Oriental composition, which accentuates de- 
tail here and neglects it there; the peculiar 
space arrangement and the decorative treat- 
ment of detail, captivated all modern spirit. 

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, the es- 
thetes of the Empire, and the forerunners of 
the Japanese enthusiasts, and specialists like 
Cernuschi, Regamey, Guimet, and Bing be- 
came the spokesmen for Japanese bibelots. 
Paris was deluged with little art objects fash- 
ioned out of bronze, porcelain, cloisonne, jade, 
ivory, wood and metal. Everybody started a 
collection, and became a member of the “ So- 
cieté du Jinglar,” with annual meetings at 
Sevres, which was fanatically devoted to the 
worship and exploitation of Eastern art. 

The harmonious arrangement of the Japa- 
nese colour prints in particular fascinated the 
cognoscenti. ‘The application of colour in 


46 The Whistler Book 


Japanese art is somewhat different to ours. 
It is more primitive, and based on the decora- 
tive principle of simultaneous contrast. It 
deals solely with flat tints with occasional gra- 
dations on the outer edges, and vibration is 
produced by the simple method of letting the 
paper, or silk, shine through the pigment. If 
Japanese colouring does not directly recall 
the polychromic designs of primitive people, 
of pottery decorations, wall designs, carpets 
and mats, Seandinavian wood ornamentation, 
ete., the reason is entirely to be found in its 
refinement and finish. It has the same origin; 
a totem pole is the beginning, and a Japanese 
print about the end of the development. 

True enough, coloured prints were classified 
as vulgar art. They were considered ordinary 
pictorial commodities of no more importance 
to the natives than coloured supplements to 
our Sunday readers. But they were of such 
exquisite finish that we wonderingly ask our- 
selves if the nobler branches of art in this coun- 
try really reached a higher standard of per- 
fection. It is hardly possible. It was rather 
their application than their art value which 
offended the nobility. Many of the most cher- 
ished prints of Kiyonaga, Sharaku, Shunsho, 
and Outomaro, depicting teahouse scenes, ac- 
tors, wrestlers and ladies of the Yoshiwara, 


The Butterfly 47 


were drawn for no other purpose than to serve 
as souvenir cards and advertisements. 

The colour appreciation of the Japanese 
clerk, labourer and peasant must have been 
developed to an exceptional degree, if these 
designs, that were so cheap that everybody 
bought them as we do newspapers, could 
arouse nothing but ordinary appreciation and 
matter-of-fact comment. 

The Japanese used colours in combinations 
that seem strange and unusual to us. ‘They 
did not seem to care about any complementary 
laws, but introduced yellow with pink, purple 
with green, brown with red without the slight- 
est hesitation. This may be explained by the 
restraint of their palette. Their old hand-made 
colours are all keyed in middle tints; they did 
not lack decision or strength, but they were 
never loud or vehement. ‘Thus arrangements 
were possible that would look crude with the 
use of Western colours. Cheret’s and Tou- 
louse Lautrec’s posters, even when of three- 
sheet dimensions and seen in open air, seldom 
expressed more than contrast and animation. 
They worked on the principle of the Japanese 
colour print, but in a very crude and super- 
ficial fashion. ‘They wished to startle, not to 
please. : 

If colour is seen in flat tint patches it pro- 


48 The Whistler Book 


duces a more vivid image on the retina than a 
pictorial representation of mixed pigments, as 
flat tints are more favourable to the brilliancy 
of colour. Each separate soft tint creates a 
complementary image, and the eye would be 
easily fatigued if the colours were strong. In 
the Japanese colour print they are softened 
and blended together not so much by the skil- 
ful and harmonious juxtaposition, as by the 
suavity of the medium, the introduction of 
neutral tints, the mellow white foundation of 
the paper, and the arrangement of shapes 
encased in precise lines. 

The European painter had a different idea. 
Although recognizing the supremacy of col- 
our, he took visual appearances as they were 
and actually appeared in life as guiding mod- 
els for his representations. Colour became 
submerged in other qualities almost equally 
important, as those of line, perspective, chia- 
roscura, relief drawing and minute observa- 
tion. The Eastern artist applied colour for 
colour’s sake, and kept all other elements, no- 
tably those of line, feeling, shape and space 
arrangement independent — not independent 
as far as the tonality of the final effect was 
concerned, but independent in their function 
as vehicles of expression. ‘They were never 
diffused in the same way as in an Old Master. 


Owned by John G. Johnson 
LANGE LEIZEN OF THE AARKS: PURPLE AND ROSE. 








G& 


The Butterfly 49 


Fach line, shape and colour had to tell its own 
story, while in Western art composition, col- 
our and idea often became inseparable by the 
application of the blurred outline. 

Whistler, at this stage of his development, 
was interested simply in recreating Japanese 
colour arrangements, to paint local values in 
such a way that they would reflect the beauty, 
contrast and variety of an Outamaro print. 
The pictures of this period remind one of that 
capricious Chinese princess, of whom Heinrich 
Heine speaks, whose quaint and solitary pleas- 
ure consisted of tearing costly silks into tatters, 
to scatter the rags to the winds and to watch 
them flutter like rose, blue and yellow butter- 
flies to the lily ponds below. 

Already in his “ Woman in White ” Whis- 
tler had shown some preferences for colour, 
but not until after he had taken his first house 
in London, when his mother came to live with 
him, did he show those peculiar outbursts of 
colour that were a direct outcome of the study 
of Japanese prints. In later years it was all 
tone, but in the years 1863-66, it was all colour, 
with a preference for white. The principal 
pictures of this period were “ Lange Leizen of 
the Six Marks: In purple and rose” (in the 
possession of John G. Johnson) ; “ The Little 
White Girl” (owned by Arthur Studd), 


50 The Whistler Book — 


“The Golden Screen,” “'The Princess of the 
Porcelain Land,” and “'The Balcony: Varia- 
tions of Flesh Colour” (owned by Charles W. 
Freer) and “ The White Symphony ” (owned 
by John G. Whittemore). 

Whistler clothed his English models in 
Eastern dress, and reproduced the beautiful 
colours with Japanese detail. He was among 
the first to appreciate the beauty of Chinese 
porcelain, of which he owned many choice 
pieces. In his “ Lange Leizen” is shown a 
young woman in a Japanese costume, seated 
and holding with her left hand on her lap a 
blue and white vase of the shape known in 
Holland as the “ Lange Leizen of the Six 
Marks ” (referring to the potter’s mark on the 
bottom of the vase). Her right hand, covered 
by the sleeve of the kimono, is raised and holds 
a brush. Her skirt is black with a delicate 
design in colours. ‘The kimono is cream white, 
decorated with bright flowers and lined with 
rose colours. Around her hair, which falls 
over her shoulders, is tied a black scarf. On 
the floor are several blue and white vases and 
an Oriental carpet. To the right is a red cov- 
ered table, and behind the figure is a chest. 
The painting is signed “ Whistler, 1864,” in 
the upper right-hand corner. The frame was 
designed by Whistler himself and decorated 





National Gallery, Washington 


THE PRI 





YCESS OF THE PORCELAIN LAND, 





hy . 


The Butterfly Rages 


with Chinese fret and six marks. It was 
shown in the Royal Academy of 1864. 

Another picture of this period is the 
“Golden Screen.” A young woman in Japa- 
nese costume is seated on a brown rug, her 
head seen in profile, as she examines a Japa- 
nese print. She wears a purple kimono dec- 
orated with multicoloured flowers and_bor- 
dered with a vermilion scarf, and a green obi 
tied around her waist; her outer kimono is 
white with a red flowered design. ‘To the left 
is a tea box, some roses and a white vase with 
pansies. Hiroshige prints are scattered over 
the floor. The background consists of a fold- 
ing screen with Japanese houses and figures, 
painted on a gold ground. These two pictures 
are far from being satisfactory. The compo- 
sition is restless, the colours do not harmonize, 
and the figure is one of that peculiar night- 
marish type which some artists affect; a being 
belonging to that peculiar class of humanity 
who wear slouch drapery instead of tailor- 
made costumes, and carry crystal balls, urns 
and sunflowers as an esthetic amusement, I 
suppose, about their person. 

The model for both these pictures was Jo- 
anna Heffernan, an Irish girl, neither partic- 
ularly handsome nor well educated; but she 
was a good model, who adapted herself easily 


52 The Whistler Book 


to a painter’s idea, and her native wit and will- 
ingness to learn atoned for any lack of knowl- 
edge. She generally read while she was po- 
sing for Whistler, and as she talked with his 
friends, posed for other artists and visited pic- 
ture exhibitions, she played quite an impor- 
tant part in the painter’s life during his early 
years in London. She went to Paris in the 
winter of 1861-2 to pose for “'The Woman 
in White,” in his studio on the boulevard des 
Battignoles. He painted her in a number of 
other pictures, notably as “Jo” and “ The 
Little White Girl.” Although different in 
each picture, now young, now more mature, 
in one case a lady and in another a buxom girl, 
she is really beautiful in none, though always 
attractive. He probably merely used her as 
a suggestion. He liked to have her in his 
studio even when he did not paint her form 
or features. There is also a dry point of 
“ Jo,’ dated 1861, which shows her with 
streaming hair, which is probably the nearest — 
approach to a likeness. It is a beautiful bit 
of drawing and interesting as a space arrange- 
ment. It shows how a head can almost fill 
the entire space of a picture without becoming 
obtrusive or looking too large. The line work 
is excellent in its purity of design and appar- 
ent carelessness. : 





Owned by Arthur Studd 
SYMPHONY IN WHITE, II: THE LITTLE WHITE GIRL. 





AN 


The Butterfly PbS 


A change of method is noticeable in “ The 
Little White Girl,” the colour scheme of which 
is exquisite. ‘The white dress of the young 
girl, in profile, with loosened hair, leaning 
against a mantelpiece, and her reflection in the 
glass, are accentuated in a beautiful manner 
by the brilliant colour notes of a red lacquer 
box, a blue and white vase, a fan with a Hiro- 
shige-like design and a decorative arrange- 
ment of pink and purple azaleas. The paint- 
ing is thinner and there is greater repose in the 
composition. Swinburne saw the picture be- 
fore it was sent up to the Royal Academy in 
1865, and expressed his admiration by writing 
“Before the Mirror. Verses under a Pic- 
ture: ”’ 


** Come snow, come wind or thunder, 
High up in the air 
I watch my face and wonder 
~ At my bright hair. 
Naught else exalts or grieves 
The rose at heart that heaves 
With love of our own leaves, and lips that pair. 


“ T cannot tell what pleasures 
Or what pains were, 
What pale new loves and treasures 
New Years will bear, . 
What beam will fall, what shower 
With grief or joy for dower. 
But one thing knows the flower, the flower is fair.” 


54 The Whistler Book 








“La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine ” 
(Whistler apparently was fond of using elab- 
orate titles) is perhaps his finest work in vivid 
colouring. The colour differentiations are well 
placed, but the canvas, after all, looks too much 
like a huge Japanese print, painted in the 
Western style, which represents objects round 
and in relief, and not merely in flat tints. The 
placing of the screen with the face looming 
above it is as peculiar as it is attractive, but 
it is an arrangement that is strictly Japanese 
in character. Whistler began with painting 
detail, and only gradually learned to see life 
in a broader and more mysterious way. It is 
a portrait of Miss Christie Spartali, a real 
Rossetti type, daughter of the Consul-General 
for Greece in London in 1868. Her father did 
not like it; but Rossetti did, and sold it from 
his own studio to help Whistler along. Later 
it came into the possession of F’. R. Leyland, 
and was used to decorate the “ Peacock 
Room.” It was first exhibited at the Paris 
Salon of 1865. It is really a combination of 
Rossetti and Outomaro, with a slight flavour 
of Whistler’s individuality. 

“On the Balcony ” (exhibited first in 1866) 
of the Freer collection is a peculiar combina- 
tion of models masquerading in kimonos and 
a background of English river scenery. He 





National Gallery, Washington 
ON THE BALCONY: VARIATIONS IN FLESH—COLOUR AND GREEN. 





\* , ee - ihe “ y y 


The Butterfly 55 


essayed the same task as Chavannes in his 
mural decorations, i. e., to determine the local 
tints of each face or arm by the surrounding 
colours. The problem was made still more dif- 
ficult by showing each face in a different illu- 
mination. One face is silhouetted in profile 
against the river, another shaded by a fan and 
the form of a standing figure, the others are 
seen in front light. I do not believe he has 
ever attempted a more ambitious problem, and 
he solved it in a most subtle and convincing 
fashion. It is a delightful harmony in colour, 
and exceedingly well-balanced; it reminds one 
of the Japanese, but the colour and vibrating 
atmosphere is Occidental. Pity that he found 
it necessary to introduce Japanese costumes. I 
perfectly realize that one of the principal 
charms of this picture is the incongruity of the 
ensemble. Yet who ever saw in a London 
town such a balcony with Japanese awnings, 
and English girls dressed up like geishas, whil- 
ing away the early hours of the night. The 
figures belong neither to Japan nor Great 
Britain. ‘They are simply there for colour’s 
sake, but, after all, such associations of 
thought, no matter whether in paint or poetry, 
never constitute the greatest art. The com- 
position is more restful and simpler than in 
his earlier works. When Whistler began to 


56 The Whistler Book 


realize this shortcoming of his earlier style, he 
turned away from “ orchestral explosions of 
colour” and “volleys of paint,” and began 
that wonderful process of elimination which 
helped him to become one of the greatest paint- 
ers of the nineteenth century. 

In his later work Whistler returned once 
more to vivid colouring. It was solely in pas- 
tels and water colours, never in oils. And the 
butterfly, the symbol of Whistler’s individu- 
ality, fluttered gaily from picture to picture, 
from print to print, and letter to letter; now 
disappearing in greyish mists, then peeping 
forth from a dark olive background, and again 
asserting his existence at times as a mere 
shadow, as a dark or coral red silhouette. 
Changing his colour and size on every canvas, 
he is now shaded blue, brown, rose, red, violet 
or peacock blue and then, suddenly assuming 
unusually large proportions, he spreads his 
wings in full flight to be lost once more as a 
grey, almost imperceptible spot, in some twi- 
light atmosphere. At one moment he appears 
on a vase, a rug, or a curtain. He floats on 
the sea, rest on doorposts, wings his way over 
flowers and rocks, shifts sportively from the 
lower left to the right corner, thereupon rises 
to almost the middle of the canvas, flutters 
around the figures, even touches their forms 


The Butterfly 57 


delicately, as a dainty creature may do, and 
continues his endless variations and gyrations; 
ever ready to assert the final approval of the 
master. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE ART OF OMISSION 


A BLUE-BLACK night, broken by sparks of 
bursting skyrockets and weird forms of light, 
in which two illuminated towers are vaguely 
indicated. ‘To the left a cluster of foliage and 
a crowd of people, felt rather than seen. Such 
is the subject matter of this little 17 x 23 can- 
vas which probably excited more controversy 
and discussion than any other of Whistler’s 
pictures. It was scarcely noticed when it was 
first exhibited at the Dudley Gallery in Octo- 
ber. But in 1877 the storm broke loose, and 
the famous libel suit against Ruskin, and the 
record of all details of the trial in a brown- 
covered pamphlet, under the title “ Whistler 
v. Ruskin, Art and Art Critics” (in 1878), 
were the immediate results. And the discus- 
sion con or pro has not ceased to this very day. 
Some call it merely a clever sketch; others 
consider it one of the highest expressions 
beauty is capable of. 

What is there so remarkable ana fascinating 
in this picture, that it can exercise such an in- 

58 


Owned by Mrs. Samuel Untermyer 
NOCTURNE IN BLACK AND GOLD: THE FALLING ROCKET. 





‘ 





The Art of Omission 59 


fluence! Technically it is not perfect, the 
blacks are rather opaque, and it does not pos- 
sess the haunting charm of the “ Old Batter- 
sea Bridge ” or even of the “ Valparaiso Har- 
bour.” 

Is it the subject matter? Fireworks were 
never painted before, or, at least, did not con- 
stitute the sole motif of a picture. Yet this 
should be no objection. Fireworks are one of 
the modern amusements that enjoy great pop- 
ularity. There should be no objection to their 
representation, as little as to a baseball game, 
a prize fight or any realistic phase of our per- 
sonal life. The curious interest of this paint- 
ing, or any of Whistler’s nocturnes, does not 
lie merely in the novelty of the subject (i.e. 
novel to pictorial representation), nor that it 
depicts the mystery of night in an unusual 
manner, as some artists and writers claim. 

Its significance lies much deeper. It actu- 
ally represents the beginning of a new way of 
painting, not merely of atmospheric condi- 
tions, but of an art different in its intentions 
from any previous form of representation. 

During the trial Whistler himself gave the 
following definition of a nocturne: 

“T have perhaps meant rather to indicate 
an artistic interest alone in the work, divesting 
the picture of any sort of interest which might | 


60 The Whistler Book 


have been otherwise attached to it. It is an 
arrangement of line, form and colour first, and 
I make use of any incident which shall bring 
about a symmetrical result. Among my works 
are some night pieces, and I have chosen the 
word ‘ Nocturne’ because it generalizes and 
simplifies the whole set of them.” 

After Whistler had stated that he had 
worked two days on the “ Falling Rocket,” 
the General Attorney said: 

“The labour of two days, then, is that for 
what you ask two hundred guineas?” 

To which Whistler replied: 

“No — I ask it for the knowledge of a life- 
time.” 

This is hardly a satisfactory explanation. 
It merely informs us that the consideration of 
line, form and colour is more important than 
the incident depicted. Have not all painters 
worked in that way! The actual manipula- 
tion of the pigment on the canvas is the 
supreme pleasure of every genuine painter. 
But the source of inspiration after all lies in 
the incident that is in the line, form and colour 
indicated by the incident. Or does Whistler 
wish to convince us that he mentally invented a 
colour scheme and then set out to find the inci- 
dent? He might have said to himself, “ I want 
to paint a night scene, in blue and gold, and 


The Art of Omission 61 


I want such a silhouette to dominate the 
scene,” but, after all, the incident had to fur- 
nish, or rather suggest, the possibilities of the 
mental vision. He, more than most painters, 
saw poetry in nature. His wonderful descrip- 
tion of a river scene at night in the “Ten 
O'clock ” vouches for that. Read these lines 
that are worthy of any poet: 

“When the evening mist clothes the river- 
side with * poetry ’ as with a veil, and the poor 
buildings lose themselves in the dim sky and 
the tall chimneys become campanile, and the 
warehouses are palaces in the night, and the 
whole city hangs in the heavens, and the fairy 
land is before us — then the wayfarer hastens 
home, the workman and the cultured one, the 
wise and the one of pleasures cease to under- 
stand as they have ceased to see, and nature, 
who for once has sung in tune, sings her ex- 
quisite song to the artist alone, her son and her 
master; her son in that he loves her, and her 
master in that he knows her.” 

A man who wrote like that surely received 
his inspirations from nature, and was depend- 
ent on the incident as much as anybody else. 
No, the true significance of his nocturne, as 
remarked before, lies in the original intention, 
not in the final effect of the subject he wished to 
produce. For conventionalist and impression- 


62 The Whistler Book 


ist alike, nature is the source of symbols for 
their mood. With them the standpoint is re- 
markably different from that of the superficial 
realists, who imagine that the mere copy of 
a scene must give the emotion that the scene 
itself arouses; who forget that the artist’s 
emotion is as much a selective factor as his 
vision of the objective signs needful for the 
communication of his feeling to his public. 

He probably wished to remain under cover, 
and not come out boldly and say: “ This is 
the Japanese way of doing things. I disen- 
gage the poetical significance from an object 
or fact in Eastern fashion. I have learned this 
from the Hiroshige prints.” 

Few artists are willing to lay bare the mech- 
anism of their individual way of interpreta- 
tion. They would be misunderstood anyhow. 
Painters would have rejoiced to call him a 
downright imitator. And that is just the point 
where he differed from the average artist who 
followed the Eastern trail of art. He suc- 
ceeded in combining the two great art elements 
of the world, those of the East and the West. 
In the sixties he was interested merely in a 
phase of Japanese art, that of colour. Hiro- 
shige prints were hung on the wall or scattered 
on the floor of his studio, as can be noted in 
several of his earlier paintings. The Japanese 


The Art of Omission 63 


artists were virtuosos of colour. ‘They com- 
bined the most contradictory colours into a 
harmony, nuances which for centuries had es- 
caped the appreciation of the European eye. 
After many experiments Whistler realized 
that this refined sense of colour was only one 
of the external accomplishments of Japanese 
art, that its true soul was revealed in its sug- 
- gestive quality. , 

The Japanese artists work without perspec- 
tive, shadows and reflections, and even when 
they apply them they do so in a purely decora- 
tive way. They rely entirely on design, on line 
and the juxtaposition of flat colour shapes. 
They do not care to produce an illusion, as if 
the frame afforded a view on a scene of actual 
life. They are satisfied with making a mere 
delineation, a suggestion of a beautiful gown 
or mountain view. 

In literature, or even in such a simple mat- 
ter as the naming of things, the Japanese in- 
variably give play to the exercise of their 
imagination to bring out a suggestive effect. 
The same tendency extends into their fine arts. 
In treating objects of nature, however insig- 
nificant, the Japanese artist strives to suggest 
or indicate some sentiment beyond what is con- 
veyed by the facts represented, just as the poet 
strives to store up a mine of thought in the 


64 The Whistler Book 


thirty-one syllables of an ordinary verse, the 
Tanka, or in the still shorter Haikai of seven- 
teen syllables. In short, the Japanese artist 
exerts himself to produce more than beauty of 
form or colour. This quality is less apparent 
in the coloured wood print so popular with 
Westerners. An Outomaro is really lacking 
suggestiveness. It runs too much into tech- 
nical detail, and just for that reason perhaps 
we more readily understand the European 
artists. 

Take for instant a simple representation of 
summer plants, merely a few stalks. The artist 
is not satisfied to show us the actual facts but 
endeavours to indicate something beyond what 
is actually represented, the delight of a flowery 
field in summer or the cool refreshing. breeze 
under which the Dee are bending and sway- 
ing. 

The Western artists hitherto entertained a 
different ideal and though there were many 
schools, each advocating a different ideal, they 
all agreed on one point: that they had to cre- 
ate an illusion, with modelling, rotundity of 
form, light, shade and distance. Suggesting 
a fact is subtler than actually representing a 
fact. .A sketch has something, a virility and 
freshness that a finished painting rarely has. 
We prefer Courbet to Ingres, Israels to Leigh- 


The Art of Omission 65 


ton. There must be something left to imag- 
ination, to our emotions and ezsthetic conscious- 
ness. ‘The Japanese leave most to imagina- 
tion. Their method lacks strength but is capa- 
ble of conveying finer poetic sentiments. Their 
vision is clearer, more rapid and less disturbed 
by intellectual preoccupations than ours. They 
are perhaps more perceptual than conceptual. 
Not that they lack deep poignant expression, 
but that they are deficient in intensity and 
depth of representation. The grandiose unity 
of effect of a Titian, Tintoretto or Rubens is 
beyond the kakemono and colour print. They 
succeeded in some instances in adumbrating 
in lines of conventional severity and precision 
strange and mystical intimations of spiritual 
existence. But we find it difficult to discern 
these qualities as we need more than sugges- 
tion to arrive at such conclusions. 

Whistler tried and succeeded in translating 
this suggestiveness in such a manner that the 
Western mind could understand and appre- 
ciate it. How did he accomplish this task! 
He realized that he could not abandon atmos- 
phere, light and distance. He had to apply 
the Eastern principle without deteriorating 
the Western technique. ‘To proceed like the 
Japanese would have resulted in a failure. 
His “ Princess of the Porcelain Land” must 


66 The Whistler Book 


have taught him this. He strove for something 
else than a mere resemblance. He adopted 
certain ideas of space arrangement, certain 
forms of design and the elimination of detail. 
The underlying composition reminds of the 
Japanese, but not the finish. 

Hiroshige was the first designer of Japanese 
colour prints who devoted himself largely to 
landscapes with figures, and with Eastern in- 
genuity almost exhausted the subject. His 
“ Hundred Views of Fusi-yama” contain the 
most startling designs and problems of com- 
position that have ever been attempted, and 
they are treated with incomparable boldness, 
- and solved with astounding skill. ‘The rarest 
aspects of nature are treated with perfect bal- 
ance. It is a play of curves and geometrical 
shapes that bewilders the Western mind that 
has been content with comparatively few 
formule. 

The vista idea of representing a scene as if 
viewed through the frame of a doorway, which 
Whistler so frequently used in his etchings as 
in “‘ The Lime Burner” and ‘ The Garden,” 
is strictly Japanese. One of his friends said 
that Whistler never objected to any one try- | 
ing to copy his way of painting, but looked 
upon filching of ideas as grand larceny. This 
proves how ignorant we all are about our con- 





y, London 


Yr 


é 


Tate Gall 


OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE. 


° 
2 


NOCTURNE IN BLUE AND GOLD 





The Art of Omission 67 





duct of life. If anybody ever plagiarized ideas 
it was Whistler. The “'T ” shape of the “ Old 
Battersea Bridge,” in his nocturne of blue and 
gold, is almost an exact copy of a Hiroshige 
design. ‘The same can be said of the branch 
of leaves protruding like a silhouette from the 
margin of his “ Ocean,” and the composition 
of several other nocturnes. But Whistler 
added something which no Japanese print sug- 
gests. He added light, atmosphere, distance 
and mystery. 

Hiroshige relied entirely upon design and 
line, and he was not a good draughtsman at 
that, at least not in his figures. His human 
figures frequently look like miniature carica- 
tures or curious little insects. His line lacks 
purity and sweep, but is more realistic and less 
conventional than that of his predecessors. 
His colour is crude in comparison with the 
older artists. His prints that were executed 
after the introduction of European aniline col- 
ours in 1850, with their streaks of vivid red 
and blue, are almost offensive to the eye. His 
earlier ones, when he was content in working 
in pale colours, in pale blue and black with just 
a suggestion of pink, are vastly superior. 
Later on he tried to learn from the Europeans, 
and strove for atmospheric effects, but always 
suggested it rather by design than colour. If 


68 The Whistler Book 





he used colour for that purpose it went never 
beyond a simple wash. 

Whistler sacrificed line almost entirely. He 
worked in big masses, shapes and silhouettes 
and made colour the principal attraction. The 
simplicity of design he borrowed from the 
Japanese, but the intimate charm of his colour ~ 
he got from another art, the art of music. 
Many paintings of the latter half of the nine- 
teenth century show this musical tendency. 
Chavannes, Cazin, our American landscape 
painter Tryon, even the Impressionists, try to 
produce with colour something similar to the 
effect of sound. It is either a resemblance of 
feeling in execution, or the desire to deliver 
us over to a mood like music. Generally both 
desires go hand in hand. | 

The painter, to accomplish this, must go 
back to the emotional elements of things, to 
view objects with primitive enthusiasm and 
to disregard all cumbersome detail. These 
qualities must dominate his conception, and 
his treatment must be slightly decorative. He 
must see things flat, in curious shapes, and then 
juxtapose and complement his colours in such 
fashion that they produce instantaneously a 
pleasant retinal image. In most paintings the 
subject matter attracts our attention first, and 
the appreciation of its technique reaches our 


The Art of Omission 69 


emotion through a mental process. A Cha- 
vannes fresco and a Cazin landscape, on the 
other hand, appeal directly to our emotions. 
Henner, Corot, Carriére are musical, Leigh- 
ton, Dagnan-Bouveret, Bocklin are not. Cha- 
vannes and Tryon construct their composi- 
tions like a composer his score. By applying 
parallelism of line and repetition of form and 
colour shapes with slight variation, they at- 
tempt to transpose musical conditions to the 
sphere of colour. 

Cazin goes further than either. He comes 
nearest to Whistler. He actually tries to 
make the colour sing, not a composition of 
diversified interests, but a simple sweet melody 
that instantaneously produces a distinct lyri- 
cal emotion. In his best pictures he reproduces 
successfully the perfect harmony of a few 
fugitive tints, such as occur so frequently in 
nature by a combination of the evening sky 
and a shimmering surface of water, by a 
white cottage in moonlight, or desolate 
marshes against a starlit sky. In this, Whis- 
tler excelled. He advanced another step by 
using the smallest limit of colours possible, 
without obliterating form and subject matter. 
Although Whistler accentuated the breadth of 
vision, divided his space arrangement into as 
few planes as possible, juxtaposed rarely more 


70 The. Whistler Book 


than two colours, and made all objects appear 
shadowy and weird against a glimmering sky, 
it is astonishing how vibrant he kept his colour; 
the more so as his colours are laid on rather 
flatly, and, occasionally, so thinly that the 
canvas shines through. This, of course, helps 
the vibrating quality, but the colour tints con- 
tain so many subtle variations that they 
scarcely become discernible to the eye but 
merely conscious as a vague shimmer, like that 
of night and atmosphere themselves. 

The colour combinations are frequently the 
same. Blue and silver, and blue and gold ap- 
pear most frequently. Then there is brown 
with gold or silver, and a crepuscule in flesh 
colour and green, which was also the theme 
of “ On the Balcony.” 

His subjects were chosen with great discre- 
tion. Outside of the “ Valparaiso Harbour ” 
picture, a “ Southampton Water ” and a “ St. 
Marks, Venice,’ most were devoted to Lon- 
don. There is a Chelsea embankment in win- 
ter, a Chelsea in snow and ice, the Westminster 
Bridge, the Trafalgar Square in snow, and the 
old Battersea reach and bridge in three ver- 
sions. Whistler never stopped work at a 
picture until it was as perfect as he could make 
it. Many of the pictures that are now on the 
market, mere scraps and fragments at ridic- 


“MONS ‘V@SIHHO ‘:dIOD GNV AVUD NI ANYOLOON 








The Art of Omission 71 


ulous prices, he would not have allowed to go 
out of his studio. He had the conscience of 
the true artist, but he never went to the ex- 
treme. He knew when to stop, a quality which 
is exceedingly rare. He would never have 
spoiled a canvas as Maris and Ryder do. He 
worked very hard on most of his pictures, but 
they do not show it. ‘The difficulties and delib- 
erate slowness of execution are lost in the final 
result. “To say of a picture, as it is often 
said in its praise, that it shows great and ear- 
nest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and 
unfit for view.” He followed this maxim out 
to the letter. Industry was with him a neces- 
sity — not a virtue. Were you to ask me to 
define the charm of his nocturnes, I should say, 
I fancy that it lies in the delicious purity of 
their expression. The emotions which Whis- 
tler wishes to excite are those of visional pleas- 
ure, of subtle speculation and vague emotional 
joy. In him inspiration always prevailed over 
caprice. The picture had first to express the 
arrangement of colour entrusted to it, and was 
scarcely allowed any dash or extravagance of 
brushwork or form, unless they would form a 
_ part of his original plan and serve as a con- 
trast or dissonance. He never added anything 
in his repaintings, but cut out one passage after 
another; he did not graft on, he pruned, for 


72 The Whistler Book 


he meant nothing should remain but the most 
essential. If there was ever a man tormented 
by the accursed ambition to put the whole 
world into one picture, the whole picture into 
one tonality, and the whole tonality into one 
colour note, it was Whistler. It is difficult to 
understand why his work was ever criticized 
as being unfinished. When Burne-Jones, in 
a spirit hostile to Whistler’s work, declared in 
the witness box at the Ruskin trial: “In my 
opinion .. . a picture ought not to fall short 
of what has been for ages considered as com- 
plete and finished,” Whistler retorted effect- 
ively: ‘A picture is completely finished when 
nothing more can be done to improve it.” 
And for this finish he tried incessantly. 
‘There was never an artist who was more con- 
scientious and more ardently striving for per- 
fection than he. He sometimes tried experi- 
ments with different mediums in oil painting. 
At one time he used benzine to thin the colours, 
another time kerosene. He would cover a large 
éanvas all over with the latter, in order to bring 
cut the dried tints, before he started to re- 
paint or overpaint. And he said to Clifford 
Adams, his last apprentice, “In the morning 
we may not succeed in getting the direct rela- 
tion of colour, but at noon it may become more 
harmonious and at sundown we might strike 


The Art of Omission 73 


just the right thing.” And so he worked, day 
after day and year after year, on his pictures, 
until every trace of labour was obliterated and 
the picture had become a masterpiece. “A 
masterpiece that would appear as a flower” to 
the painter — perfect in its bud as in its bloom 
— with no reason to explain its presence, no 
mission to fulfil; a joy to the artist, a delusion 
to the philanthropist — a puzzle to the botan- 
ist — an accident of sentiment to the literary 
man.” 

This flatly contradicts the general idea ram- 
pant among painters that he furnished his 
paintings aw premier coup. His friends en- 
dorse the denial. Mr. R. A. Canfield has seen 
not less than sixteen changes of background to 
one portrait, “and heaven knows how many 
more that were not counted.” Whenever he 
was dissatisfied with a painting, he started a 
new canvas until he finally realized the task he 
had attempted. In that sense his colleagues are 
right, his pictures look as if they were painted 
au premier coup, but it was a roundabout way. 
It is impossible to advance any theory about 
his technique. All his pictures are painted in 
varying thicknesses of paint, in varying de- 
grees of liquidity of paint, in varying smooth- 
ness and roughness, in few or many sittings, 
in fact, in the varying technique which alone 


74 The Whistler Book 


can correspond to moods of so great a painter 
and the circumstances of each picture. 

The only thing which has any semblance to 
a constant method is a moderate adherence, in 
his portraits at least, to the old way of paint- 
ing from dark to light ‘which, in the final 
painting, in overlapping pieces of paint, as in 
the case of most oil paintings until recently, 
results in the thickening of the paint towards 
the light. 

There are scarcely more than sixteen fin- 
ished nocturnes on record. Of these, most are 
masterpieces, or would pass as belonging to 
the best of his works. And as he worked at 
them ever since he returned from Valparaiso 
in 1866 and held the first important exhibition 
of nocturnes at the Dowdswell Gallery, and in 
Paris (in the Rue Séze) not previous to 1883, 
when quite a number were still unfinished, we 
are astonished at the small output. But mas- 
terpieces are scarce. And if a painter can be 
credited with two or three every year he is a 
hero in his profession. 

The importance of the nocturne in Whis- 
tler’s own career, everybody must realize who 
is familiar with his work. They add to his per- 
sonality a delicious flavour that even his litho- 
graphs and large paintings do not grant in the 
same manner. It was to him an instrument 


“Ha ATIS GNV ANIA NI ANYOLOON 


HEE 


Se 















































See SS 








The Art of Omission 75 


that obeyed his slightest wishes. It was art, 
at once aristocratic, delicate, of high finish and 
moreover imbued with an individual rhythm 
and the poetry of nature. 

What wonderful rain and snow this man has 
painted! What vast expanses of water as mys- 
tic as the night! And those vagrant mists, that 
envelop everything and blot out the very exist- 
ence of things! There has not been anything 
in art since Turner that could be compared 
with it. There are no banal sunsets, no glaring 
moonlights, only the more intricate moods of 
nature, snowfall, mist, late evening and night. 
Also in the choice of his subject he added a new 
note. 

The art of a landscape painter is determined 
by a thousand influences upon his mind other 
than those of nature. The essence of Monet’s 
art is one of an hour, but with such a painter 
as Daubigny or Rousseau it is one of a place. 
There is the sense of the atmosphere of the 
' moment given by one school of landscape paint- 
ers, of locality by another, poetry by a third 
and of the historic associations of a place by 
yet another school. These things are, of course, 
determined by temperament, and schools of 
painting may be classified in this way more 
adequately than they are. Human association 
creeps into landscapes in various degrees, and 


76 The Whistler Book 


also in other ways than the historical way which 
we feel, —as in F. EK. Church’s pictures, for 
instance, — but landscape, generally subordi- 
nate to the human interest, now sometimes tries 
to free itself from this influence entirely. It 
has become like poetry, simply the record of an 
emotion or mood remembered in colour. This 
is Whistler’s peculiar innovation. 

And yet the final significance of the nocturne 
in the world of art is still an open question. 
Time alone can decide its value. The rest is 
mere hypothesis. Many — and I only talk of 
people who understand — argue that despite 
its perfection, the nocturne represents a minor 
phase of art. Of course, a nocturne, no matter 
how beautiful, cannot compete in importance 
with the “ Portrait of Carlyle,” or “The Ar- 
tist’s Mother.” Size does not mean much, but 
it means something. A small painting can be 
as exquisite in workmanship as a large one, but 
it can never rise to the same dignity of expres- 
sion. A frescoe by Chavannes would lose much 
if executed in the size of the a vCEARY easel 
picture. 

But the nocturne stands for something in 
modern art which lends it special importance, 
aside of all workmanship and beauty of pic- 
torial treatment. It represents a return to the 
art of painting for painting’s sake. Every art, 


The Art of Omission 77 


may it be music, poetry, dancing, sculpture or 
painting, has its own peculiar technique, which 
the technically ignorant person cannot appre- 
ciate. Poetry which has no formal conventions 
is inconceivable. And, in a similar manner, 
painting has the charm of texture and brush- 
work, the charm of how the paint is actually 
put on and displayed on the canvas. ‘The exs- 
thetic satisfaction derived from an art is in 
exact proportion to one’s knowledge of the 
art’s technique. 

This largely explains the general public’s 
indifference to art. And the everlasting fight 
between the artist and the public has been on 
these lines. ‘The plea of the modern experi- 
mentist that all poetry of painting should be 
in the paint, which also Whistler advanced, is 
a just one if not carried to extremes. Absolute 
paucity of idea is as unfavourable as story- 
telling. The intrinsic beauty of a painting lies 
in the method of painting, and the only guide 
for the painter is colour and the general ar- 
rangement — not a method learned by rote, not 
an arrangement garroted by a thousand rules 
which others have invented, but that personal 
style or rhythm which is inveterately the paint- 
er’s own. So Whistler’s style is beautiful be- 
cause it is personal. His revolt was against 
story-telling, against the genre pictures, which 


WSs The Whistler Book 


adulterated painting with the skill of the novel 
writer. It is for future esthetics to decide 
whether the introduction of musical ideals is 
not just as dangerous as the intermixture of 
any other art. There is no doubt, however, 
that the new combination grants a higher pleas- 
ure to the connoisseur at present. Music is the 
most fashionable and, perhaps, most widely 
understood art to-day. 3 

This be as it may, Whistler did a great 
service to modern art. By realizing its limita- 
tions he bestowed upon it a new vitality and 
glow. His art, far from being lawless, is the 
expression of a new law. Make any kind of 
pictures you like, dear painters, provided they 
are beautiful. For each age there is a dif- 
ferent beauty. Old forms and old perfections 
wither. 

There has been too much story-telling. The 
David school, with its pompous historical, alle- 
gorical and mythological representations, has 
become intolerable to us. David, Vernet, etc., 
up to Ingres and Delaroche all seem lifeless. 
Also the Romanticists, who were the interpre- 
ters of poets, appear highstrung to more re- 
cent art ideas. ‘The reaction was inevitable. 
The Impressionists — and their merit lies prin- 
cipally in that their work represents a technical 
reaction — went too far, inasmuch as it allows 


The Art of Omission 79 





scarcely any scope to intellectual expansion. 
It is based on immediate vision, and occupies 
itself only with the consideration of light and 
colour, and keen observation of modern life. 
All the great painters met the public half way. 
The great painters, we need only to recall Rem- 
brandt, Velasquez or Leonardo, were painters 
as much as they were poets, but each in equal 
measure. ‘The qualities balanced each other, 
and they did not, like the modern painters, sac- 
rifice one for the other. 

Whistler has to be classified as an Impres- 
sionist, but he remained true to the old tradi- 
tion. He was as much a reactionist against 
classic and romantic painting as any of them; 
but he had no use for the new technique. Like 
Manet, he went back to Velasquez and Goya, 
Franz Hals, Van Dyke and all the Old Mas- 
ters who could paint. Like Courbet, he re- 
duced a scene to three or four broad tones, but 
he was more exact in the grade of tones, and 
invariably endeavoured to explain the senti- 
ment inspired by them. His work was never 
anti intellectual. On the contrary he was a true 
visionary. | 

He protested against literary elements, but 
emphasized the psychological and symbolical 
qualities of painting. Nobody was further 
remote from gross superficial realism. Like 


80 The Whistler Book 


Flaubert and the Goncourts, he proved that 
realism can go hand in hand with refined form 
and delicate psychology. He was sane 
throughout. And that is why the zsthetic revo- 
lution, produced by him, is not yet at an end. 

The first principle for the painter is to ac- 
quire a personal mode of feeling and thinking, 
and the second that he should find an adequate 
and personal method of expressing himself. 
The painter must choose his method. If he has 
only the old themes to paint the old forms will 
suit him well enough — portraits and single 
figures, landscapes and marines, cattle pictures 
and still life — but if he has anything special 
to say, he must find for himself a special and 
unique form of expression. The only criterion 
is beauty. | 


CHAPTER V 
ON LIGHT AND TONE PROBLEMS 


In his “ Art in the Netherlands,” and his 
various books on Italian art, H. Taine has 
maintained that the hand of the medieval 
painter was largely guided by optical sensa- 
tions. And, following this rather suggestive, 
than conclusive, trend of argument, we will 
readily perceive that the peculiar lighting con- 
ditions of those days, the semi-darkness of the 
interiors, the play of sunlight dying in the ob- 
scurity of shadows, and the absence of strong 
artificial lights have done much to disclose to 
the genius of a ‘Titian and a Rembrandt the 
manifold harmonies of chiaroscura, of colour- 
ing, modelling and emotion. The tallow can- 
dle, the oil lamp, the torch and the open fire- 
place were the only artificial light appliances 
known to the Middle Ages, and they were all 
only like solitary rays of light in universal 
darkness. Ilumine a room by night, by plac- 
ing a candle on the table or on the floor, and 
judge for yourself. The effects obtained, no 

81 


82 The Whistler Book 


doubt, would appear to you as weird and pic- 
turesque. The flickering light is uncertain, the 
shadows are intensely dark and pronounced, 
almost crude and vacillating, as if engaged in 
a continual combat with light. ‘The contrasts 
are startling, yet not discordant, the vague 
train of ight mingled with shadows accentuate 
only a few places with vivid spots, perchance 
the polished surface of a piece of furniture, a | 
glass or pewter mug on the table, the collaret or 
jewelled belt of some fair lady. The eye is led 
to noticing gradations of obscurity, the dark- 
ness grows animated with colour and form, and 
we see the objects as through a glaze of Van 
Dyke brown. 

No wonder that the painter of the Middle 
Ages, having become sensible to the beauty of 
transparent darkness and the brilliant passages 
of light, dared to unite extremes and to show 
every form and colour in its full strength. The 
vagueness of chiaroscural effects was the great 
modifier which enveloped all adjacent objects 
in clair obscure and tempered them with a 
warm and mellow radiance. 

How different are the conditions in our time. 
There are no more Schalcken or Rembrandt 
effects. We have succeeded in banishing dark- 
ness from our homes. We have become very 
sanitary, we want light and air, the walls of 





Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York 
LADY IN GRAY. 





RAS ns 


On Light and Tone Problems 83 


houses are built less substantial, and through 
the increased largeness and transparency of 
panes, the daylight streams in with dazzling 
vehemence. It penetrates into the remotest 
nooks and corners. Even at dawn the shadows 
are only vaguely dark, of an uncertain and 
mixed bluish grey. Lenbach, the portrait 
painter, realized this deficiency, and found it 
necessary to construct a special studio, where 
the light was only sparingly admitted through 
deep casements, and where the sitters for his 
old-master-like interpretations of modern 
characters were placed far away from the win- 
dows. 

The greatest havoc among chiaroscural 
effects, however, has been played by modern 
light appliances. Gas and electric light, with 
their various modifiers and intensifiers, have 
killed all the old ideals. There are no longer 
any striking chiaroscural contrasts or strong 
accentuations. In the Middle Ages dress and 
drapery showed depth of folds arid recesses 
which are absolutely unknown to-day. Now, 
everything is diffused with light. Nothing is 
steady and fixed, and yet objects stand out in 
painful relief. The modelling has lost much 
of its tonal variety, and all objects vaguely re- 
flect the imprint of all-pervading light. The 
values of colour appear bleached and vary in- 


84 The Whistler Book 


cessantly. Our eyes are perpetually moving 
in a restless manner from one part to another, 
and no longer find any place to rest in the 
depth of shadows. 

Luckily for us, we have been rendered un- 
conscious of these dangers, we have grown ac- 
customed to them, but their influence on mod- 
ern painting has been a most palpable one. 
Chiaroscural composition underwent a com- 
plete transformation. Saliency of object in- 
duced the modern painter for a time, at the be- 
ginning of the last century, to strive solely for 
fixed and precise conceptions of form and to 
utterly neglect the beauty of light and shade. 
When he discovered his error, he went to the 
other extreme, and not merely softened con- 
tours, but blotted them out completely. Ata 
loss how to meet this difficulty he lost himself 
in an intenser and more varied study of illum- 
ination, with the aim to reach a higher pitch 
of light. Lamplight and firelight effects and 
the contrasts of commingling light rays from 
two, or even three, sources became the order of 
the day. Sargent studied the effect of Japa- 
nese lanterns on white dresses in twilight. 
Harrison tried to fix the play of sunlight on the 
naked human body. Dannat experimented 
with flesh tones and electrical arclight and 
magnesium flashlight illumination. Zorn en- 


On Light and Tone Problems 85 





deavoured to solve in his Omnibus picture the 
conflict of various lights in a glass-encased in- 
terior. Degas and Besnard became enchanted 
with illumination from below, in the cross 
lights and the lurid unnatural lights of the 
stage, and his disciples introduced the effects 
of footlights into interiors by placing the 
lamp on the floor. 

All these studies address themselves most 
powerfully to the modern mind, as they depict 
contemporary conditions. The eye may be 
offended or even repelled by unnecessary triv- 
jalities at times, but the underlying aspiration 
is, after all, the truth. From an esthetic view- 
point it is less satisfactory, as this modern sub- 
stitute of light and shade composition, consist- 
ing of an opposition of colours, rather than of 
masses, does not afford, in the speech of Her- 
bert Spencer, “the maximum of stimulation 
with the minimum of fatigue.” It contains a 
discord, a lack of normal gratification, and this 
shortcoming, in conjunction with the deteriora- 
tion of the crafts, which were replaced by fac- 
tory labour, and the hopelessly prosaic aspect 
of modern dress, as far as colour is concerned, 
directed the painter into other fields of investi-_ 
gation. He realized that nature had remained 
unchanged, that the colour-symphony of sea 
and landscapes, of dawn and sunset, were as 


86 The Whistler Book | 


beautiful as ever, and he went out of doors for 
inspiration. And then, to his great astonish- 
ment, he discovered that the optical sensations 
afforded by nature were very similar to those 
he had experienced in his home life, also how - 
everything was diffused with light, and forms 
rendered uncertain by the vibration of light. 
The famous colour harmony of Italian 
painters, red, green and violet, which aroused 
action successively in the whole field of vision 
without exhausting it, seemed meaningless. 
Strange, apparently discordant combinations 
of green and blue and yellow, orange and red, 
which stimulate only certain portions of the 
retina at the expense of others, obtruded them- 
selves upon his optical consciousness. It be- 
came apparent that light does not emphasize, 
but that it generalizes, and that colours and 
tones, although more varied, are less decisive 
than in the painting of the Old Masters. The 
charm of pictorial illusion seemed to have 
shifted from the juxtaposition of contrast to 
the more subtle and less powerful variety of 
half tones. It is not so much the richness and 
fullness of colour the modern painter strives 
for, as Raffaelli has pointed out, but the com-- 
bination of colours which yield a sensation of 
light, which, in a way, is a reflection of our tem- 
porary light conditions. ‘That the Impres- 


~ 





Owned by John H. Whittemore 
‘“ 1” ANDALUSIENNE. 


XS 





On Light and Tone Problems 87 


sionists banished black from their palette is 
significant itself. 

Ever since the semi-darkness of the Middle 
Ages was dispelled, the minds of painters had 
been occupied with the invention of a new 
method of painting. Chardin and Watteau, 
who crosshatched and stippled pure colours in 
their pastels and water colours, were really the 
forerunners of impressionism. Delacroix was 
the first master-painter who scientifically con- 
cerned himself with light and colour notation, 
as Turner (viz. Ruskin) introduced the empha- 
sis of the colour of shadows at the expense of 
their tones. But not before science came to the 
assistance of the painter, was he able to perfect 
his system of open air mosaics, of producing 
tone by the parallel and distinct projection of 
pure colours. 

And it is Chevreul, Young, Helmholtz and 
Ogden Rood, who, after analyzing colour sen- 
sations from a physiological viewpoint and 
tracing them to their causes, supplied the 
genius of Manet, Monet and Degas with a new 
pictorial revelation of light and colour. The 
modern style of painting is a direct outcome 
of the environment in which we live. With 
the decline of candlelight parties the new era 
was ushered in, and the kerosene lamp was the 
last harmonizer of light and darkness. As it 


88 The Whistler Book 


went slowly out of fashion, the reign of half 
and quarter tones, or, in other words, a new 
reign of light, of light transposed into tone, 
set in. 

It set in, however, at the expense of every- 
thing else. It is largely technical, and the rep- 
resentations are photographic, prosaic, crude 
and often without the slightest suggestion of 
sentiment, not even that which an ordinary 
scene out of doors produces in an imaginative 
mind. This, more than any other course, 
estranges art from the approval of the general 
public. 

The subject of an Old Master, although 
mostly of a religious order and legible to the 
ordinary mind, at times may have soared be- 
yond the ordinary faculties of comprehension, 
but the object represented invariably appealed 
to the sense of sight, as it was painted in such a 
way as to create an illusion. The Old Masters 
succeeded in suggesting on a flat surface the 
roundness and actual colouring of things. The 
modern painter depicts objects in which the 
beauty is not always palpable to the layman, 
and in a manner which is less convincing, as he 
suggests form rather than actually represent- 
ing rt, and adheres most stubbornly to individ- 
ual colour interpretation. It needs connois- 
seurship and technical knowledge to under- 


On Light and Tone Problems 89 


stand and appreciate the paintings of to-day. 
The paintings of a Degas, Besnard or Renoir 
remain a myth even to the people who are fond 
of art. Comparatively few persons are versed 
in the thought-transference from colour to 
sentiment. 

Whistler did not believe in the constant 
mechanical mixture of seven solar tones, which 
make the eye perform the work which should 
be done by the painter. He tried hard for the 
dissociation of tones by endeavouring to trans- 
late the flat tints of the Japanese into oil paint- 
ings executed in Western fashion, but was not 
satisfied with the result. 

Living in London, with a view on the 
Thames, he realized that the aspects of modern 
life have turned grey. They have nothing to 
do with Oriental embroideries. Our large 
cities with their smoke and manifold exhala- 
tions (not to speak of communities subjected 
to the use of soft coal) have acquired a dust- 
laden, misty atmosphere. This peculiarity of 
city atmosphere, however, to be noticed in Lon- 
don and Paris as much as in Chicago and . 
Pittsburg, is a wonderful subduer and elimina- 
tor of detail, and should prove a valuable ally 
in conquering new suggestions of light effects. 
This Whistler realized, and he used it to ex- 
press what the inner life of things in modern 


90 The Whistler Book 





art needed most to express, the poetry of paint 
expressed in tone and light. “The study of 
light per se,” as Leon Dabo says, “ had become 
a creed with Monet, Manet and their followers. 
Somehow Whistler’s contribution to this nais- 
sance — for it was a real birth, first success- 
fully carried out by Constable — has been en- 
tirely neglected for the more obvious quality 
of full sunlight produced by the so-called Im- 
pressionists. Whistler’s paintings prove con- 
clusively that where there is harmony of colour 
there is vibration of atmosphere, and, therefore, 
the illusion of light.” 

When we stand before the “ Mona Lisa ” of 
Leonardo da Vinci and before his less famous, 
but almost equally fascinating woman of the 
Liechtenstein Gallery, we do not marvel 
merely at the lifelike representation, which 
seems to actually vibrate; but at something 
evasive and unfathomable that we find difficult 
to express in words. We experience something 
similar when we contemplate Whistler’s 
“Mother” or some portraits of modern 
masters like Blanche, Lavery, enigmatic 
Khnopff, or the grey men and women of Car- 
riere, who rise so softly and mistily out of the 
background. Although they have not attamed 
the mastership of the former in the representa- 
tion of the living, breathing people, there is the 





Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York 
SIR HENRY IRVING AS PHILIP II. 





NN ; ? P : ” 


On Light and Tone Problems 91 


same mysterious mood in their paintings. 
They seem to quiver with something that is 
essentially modern, and cannot emanate alone 
from the charm of momentary expression 
which is one of their main attractions. The 
modern figures have a less corporeal effect than 
those of the Renaissance; they resemble ap- 
paritions which have suddenly taken shape in 
the greyness of life only to dissolve again into 
shadows. ‘This is more than a technical change, 
it is anew way of thinking. We concede a new 
attribute to these painters and call their 
achievements the “ psychological style” of 
painting. Robert Henri’s “ Young Woman in 
Black ” is an interesting attempt in this direc- 
tion. 

By this we wish to convey that the figures 
tell us something of the inner life, and that the 
way in which this is accomplished impresses us 
like a commentary on their souls. Of course 
this is nothing new. All the masterpieces of 
portraiture, no matter how different technic- 
ally they may be, whether clear and sharp or 
soft and diffused, whether by a Raphael or a 
Rembrandt, Titian or Franz Hals, have the 
faculty to make us dream and invent some 
psychical annotation to the figures represented, 
but modern life is more analytical. We re- 
Joice in dissecting our thoughts, sentiments and 


92 The Whistler Book 


moods, and some of our foremost contempora- 
ries, though they may wield their brushes as 
dexterously as the Old Masters, concentrate 
upon the endeavour to reflect specifically the 
spiritual qualities and to accentuate its func- 
tions as far as it is possible in paint. 

The modern painter is fond of specializing, 
not only in subject, but technically, because he 
lacks the overflowing energy and strength to 
conquer all the elements of his profession in one 
effort. This age, at least in the upper intel- 
lectual strata, has become very skeptical. We 
are not concerned so much about divinities and 
our future state as about ourselves in the pres- 
ent. Religion no longer furnishes the emo- 
tional staff on which we may lean on our pil- 
grimage of life, and yet we need some spiritual 
support, some science for the soul, and we may 
look about for something that may mystify us 
and lift us above the prose of every-day exist- 
ence. And this search is mirrored in the en- 
deavour of these men who would like to paint 
enigmatic figures, like “ Mona Lisa” and the 
woman of the Liechtenstein Gallery. 

Conditions change, but not so much that they 
become entirely extinct. The possibilities for 
emotional art are to-day as great as ever. 

For portraiture, single figure representation 
and character delineation gentle effects capable 


On Light and Tone Problems 93 


of subtler gradations are more desirable. They 
may be found in many out-of-the-way places. 
A modern Ribera may find endless suggestions 
for new light and shade combinations in an 
ordinary cellar, and the picturesque “ tavern 
atmosphere ” of a Caravaggio or Terborg can 
surely be substituted in some obscure nooks 
and corners of our towns. Our living-rooms 
show a wealth of still life that, by the play of 
light, could be turned into beautiful accesso- 
ries. ‘There is nothing more gratifying to the 
eye than a bright, haphazard shimmer on some 
objects while the remainder is lost in a vague, 
picturesque haze. 

The student of light and shade will find the 
range of light is still a very wide one. The 
vivid glow of firelight, here flickering brightly, 
there vanishing in gloom, will always produce 
a striking effect. A pale splendour caressing 
the human form with vague reflections could 
be obtained by light streaming through stained- 
glass windows. The dazzling illumination of 
the hour of sunset, which pales and subdues all 
objects, and, concentrated on the human body, 
makes it look as if it had been absorbed all in 
light and radiated it (which Prudhon has at- 
tempted and Henner specialized), may fill our 
minds with new dreams of vision. Even the 
ghostlike rays of shimmering moonlight (as 


94. The Whistler Book | 


Steichen has shown in his versions of Rodin’s 
Balzac). may open novel methods to render 
tone and form in the broadest and softest man- 
ner possible. 

Still I do not believe in the garish effects 
of certain modern painters, who take special 
delight in reproducing the flaring vagaries of 
artificial light. ‘The trend of such works is 
towards an affected estheticism. ‘They may be 
fascinating and “ stunningly clever” but they 
do not ring true. They are at their best only 
in colour experiments specially made to startle 
the beholder. When Elsheimer painted his 
“Christ Taken Prisoner,” showing the pale 
light of the moon in the background, while the 
nocturnal figures in the foreground are en- 
veloped by the glare of torches, he ventured 
upon a problem that was, after all, logical 
and true to life. But to place a lamp on 
the floor merely for the purpose of throwing 
interesting diagonal shadows upwards on a 
woman’s figure, is not far from being an ab- 
surdity. 

The various aspects of electrical illumina- 
tion, gaslight, flashlight effects, searchlight, 
etc., no doubt can be solved pictorially, but they 
should never be applied unless the character of 
the picture absolutely demands them. 

‘Tone is the ideal of the modern painter. It 








On Light and Tone Problems 95 


is his highest ambition. It is the powerful sub- 
duer of all the incongruities of modern art. 

But what painters strive for, in most in- 
stances are merely fragmentary accomplish- 
ments. It is not tone in the large sense as 
the Old Masters understood it. To Titian and 
Rembrandt and Velasquez “tone” meant a 
combination of all pictorial qualities, the con- 
trast of colour, the balance of lighter and 
darker planes, the linear arrangement; all 
these together produced tone. ‘They do not 
sacrifice form or detail, correct drawing, the 
physiognomy of the faces and the idea and 
conception of the picture to it. 

Do not misunderstand me. Tone is desir- 
able; no picture should be without it. But it 
is merely one of the elements that enter into the 
making of a picture, and not the whole thing. 
There are light tonalities as well as dark tonali- 
ties. A Renoir is as much in tone as a black- 
in-black Tissot. 

What tonal painters see in tone is merely 
the appearance of old age. The Old Masters 
have become famous, and the public has ac- 
quired a certain predilection for dark-toned 
pictures. ‘The modern painters try to repro- 
duce it, overlooking (perhaps wilfully) that 
the dark tonality is entirely an artificial prod- 
uct, caused by dirt and dampness, the chemical 


96 The Whistler Book 


action of light, and the gradual change of col- 
our, oil and varnish. 

The Old Masters painted in a low key, but 
they probably never thought that some day 
their pictures would look as they do now. The 
modern painters try to produce a quality that 
has nothing to do with art, they cater to the 
taste of certain art patrons that have a liking 
for old-looking things. 

In portraiture the simplest scheme will al- 
ways be most certain of success. Variety is 
desirable, but no exaggeration or strained 
effects. Of all modern painters Whistler and 
Carriére seem to have excelled in conquering 
the modern limitations of light and shade com- 
position and making the most of them. They 
have enveloped their figures in clair-obscure 
that is uncertain in form, mystic in tendency, ° 
but suggestive of atmosphere, depth and space, 
some grey or dark interior filled with strug- 
gling shadows, capricious gleams of light and 
tonal gradations, tantalizing in their subtlety 
and power of suggestion. 

All sharp lines are dissolved, each detail van- 
ishes with soft delicacy into the other and their 
light, falling from some unknown source, 
quivers like a soft chord through the twi- 
light. | 

‘The “ Mother and Child” of Carriére has 


Carnegie Art Institute, Pittsburg 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK: SENOR PABLO SARA 








On Light and Tone Problems 97 


but little of the robust yet sweet and seductive 
charm of the Madonna pictures. Its glimmer 
of light is sad and dreamy, as if it were woven 
out of grey monotonies of everyday life. And 
in Whistler’s “ Sarasate ” we see in the plastic, 
but solitary light passage, on face and shirt 
front a symbol of all the glamour of romance 
and poetry that light can yield in our prosaic 
age. Whistler translated all objects into flat 
surface planes, and, in that way, sacrificed 
more to the realization of tone than any other 
painter. His fragmentary visions are almost 
colourless but never give the impression of 
monochrome. Looking at one of his enigmatic 
figures receding into vague shadows, a strange 
association of thought occurs to me: I see in 
one of the sunless courtyards of the Escurial 
the dark figure of a woman standing near a 
fountain and holding a red rose in her hand. 
At one of the palace windows is seen the proud 
face of Velasquez, gazing absent-mindedly 
upon the scene. And the wind ruffles the 
flower, carries one petal after another and scat- 
ters them upon the surface of the water. Is 
this dark silent woman the personification of 
Whistler’s muse, and does she tell us that the 
splendour of light and shade composition of 
the Old Masters has faded, that we know noth- 
ing of its fervour that rose from the depths of a 


98 The Whistler Book — 


more picturesque age, and that all we can do is 
to scatter a few colour notes across the darkness 
of space? For the jubilant and passionate note 
is altogether missing in Whistler’s art, though 
it can claim profundity and some dreami- 
ness. 

Light now flits phantom-like across the mas- 
terpieces of pictorial delineation, but it is still 
the great elixir of art, that will give life to any 
scene and animate any object. No special 
method can be indicated. Every worker must 
be his own pioneer and pathfinder. The new 
era of light is yet in a primitive stage. Itisa 
lonely art whose language is understood but by 
the few, though we have approached the hour 
of dawn before the awakening. Life may seem 
dreary and colourless to us, yet we should 
realize that only one beam of light is needed to 
change it into a vision of beauty. 

To Rembrandt even the Bree-straat in Am- 
sterdam, resplendent in his time of Oriental 
culture and Moorish pomp, may have seemed 
dull and colourless. He had to create for him- 
self a distant and enchanted realm from out the 
prosaic world in which he lived. And so must 
every ambitious artist dream himself far away 
from the grey of everyday life and construct 
a poetic world for himself alone. 

Light is, after all, objective and merely sug- 


On Light and Tone Problems . 99 


gestive. ‘The artist’s mind must serve as some 
Faustean retort, which will turn these sugges- 
tions into the soft gleams and sparkling shim- 
mers of art. Whistler was one of the few to 
accomplish the task. 


CHAPTER VI 
SYMPHONIES IN INTERIOR DECORATION 


Witi1Am Morris demanded that our entire 
environment should be beautiful. Only in mo- 
ments of superior enjoyment do we realize the 
significance of human life, and by a poem, pic- 
ture or sonata we construct the symbols that 
bring us closest to this appreciation. Why 
then not construct a candlestick, a chair, the 
surface of a wall, in such a way that they 
might be taken for symbols, to remind us of 
the existence of our soul? The candlestick shall 
no longer be a mere stand and holder for a 
candle but a souvenir of reminiscences. That 
is the philosophical idea that underlies all in- 
terior decoration and furnishing. 

As Sheridan Ford so aptly expressed it in 
an article in “ St. Stephen’s Review ” in 1889: 

“There are in England two new, and in 
their origin, distinct methods of interior deco- 
ration. Gradually they have coalesced to a de- 
gree, although they will always retain their 
individual traits and differences. ‘These two 

100 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 101 


methods may be termed the Whistlerian, and 
the English or pre-Raphaelite; the one, spon- 
taneous, fresh — simple, the other, a revival — 
complex — reformatory. Through many | 
years, from the early days of the pre-Raphael- 
ites down to the last meeting of the Painter- 
socialists, an outside influence —a_personal- 
ity — has been making itself felt in London in 
strange and subtle ways.” 

The Morris arts and crafts movement be- 
lieves in patterned design and the dominant 
force of the material. Every material speaks 
its own language, and we must understand, be- 
fore we can lend expression to it. When the 
actual moment of designing arrives, the artist- 
artisan should work with a piece of the material 
itself before his eyes — wood, stone, iron or 
plain silk, linen or wool stuff, according to cir- 
cumstances. This memory of nature’s forms, 
dominated by the momentary impression of the 
material, with its requirements, capabilities and 
limitations, would lead him to a more congenial 
and workmanlike result than all the contents 
of a natural history museum, botanical garden 
or library. In the same way as we can give to 
words a dramatic, epic or lyrical significance, 
so has wood, leather and glass their own sphere 
of expression. Harmony in every detail is the 
ultimate result. A room is no museum, every 


102 The Whistler Book 


object must be related to the other, the candle- 
stick must make a rhyme with the wall-paper, 
with the woodwork, the hangings, the table and 
chairs. 

Whistler, on the other hand, was the apostle 
of Japanese simplicity, of suggestion rather 
than realization. He tried to express his own 
zesthetic creed, and that consisted of restful ex- 
panses of unbroken wall, of decorative devices 
and ornamental motifs, individual caprices ac- 
centuated by black, and, finally, by colour. 
Colour in interior decoration meant to him the 
same thing as tone in painting. It reigned 
supreme. Our feeling of beauty varies; it may 
find its expression in a certain flower, a certain 
hour of the day or season, in a certain poem or 
song or, as it was the case with Whistler, in a 
certain delicate colour tint, that would make 
a room look gay and cheerful. He tried to 
bring the sun into the house, even in a land 
of fog and cloud. Pale pink, brown, pale 
turquoise, primrose, saffron, sulphure and 
lemon-yellow were his favourite colours. These 
he endeavoured to express. It was the gesture 
of his soul translated into every object and 
material. 

A colour is like a special metric form, and 
all lines, and every combination of tint — the 
sofa, the lamp, wall-paper — take the place of 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration. 103 


stanzas in a finished poem. In such a house we 
would see mirrors everywhere reflecting our 
own personality. Such were Whistler’s crea- 
tions. They reflected his own face, and echoed 
his own song. Whistler arrived at these con- 
clusions early in his life. During his Stevens- 
Japanese print period he interested himself a 
good deal with decorative schemes. He had 
painted “ The Princess of the Porcelain Land,” 
which was purely decorative, and, in a way, 
served as inspiration for the Peacock Room, 
as the design for the latter was really invented 
to find a proper environment for the painting. 

In a diary of William Michael Rossetti, the 
ever busy biographers have found a note refer- 
ring to six schemes or projects of practically 
the same size. It reads: “ Whistler is doing 
on a large scale, for Leyland, the subject of 
women with flowers.” ‘They were never exe- 
cuted, although some of the sketches are still 
in existence. He abandoned decorative schemes 
entirely in later years, but became more and 
more engrossed in the problems of interior dec- 
oration. In later years he intended to paint — 
a grand decoration with full orchestration that 
he would call “'The Symphony of Colours — 
Full Palette.” ‘This would have been indeed 
interesting, but I fear he went too deep into 
blacks to have accomplished it. In most in- 


104 The Whistler Book 








stances he abstained from mural decoration, — 
the panels over the chimney-place, and the 
shutter and ceiling decoration of the Peacock 
Room for the Leyland home at Prince’s Gate, 
London, were his only supreme effort in that 
direction. They show the right idea about 
decorative painting. He agreed with all dec- 
orative painters from Gozzoli to Bob Chanler, 
that it should be an arrangement of colours 
which, within its frame, affords a pleasant 
visual entertainment. 

There is no intention to give food for 
thought. The peacocks in blue on gold and 
gold on blue relate as little as does an Oriental 
carpet. He merely wished to please the eye 
by depicting them more beautifully than they 
were in nature. But why did he select pea- 
cocks? Do they not convey an idea? Figures 
usually are story-telling symbols, but not nec- 
essarily so; with him they were vehicles of col- 
our, to invent a pattern for their luminosity. 
Peacock designs occur frequently in Japanese 
art. No doubt, Whistler studied them. There 
is a certain resemblance, but he individualized 
them in his own way. The sharply silhouetted 
forms of the birds are a happy invention of 
luminous colour and interesting design. ‘The 
Japanese would have made a more lavish use 
of gold, that is they would have left larger 













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SHUTTER DECORATION, PEACOCK ROOM. 





Symphonies in Interior Decoration 105 


spaces untouched by any additional colour. 
Blank spaces of gold (or any colour) act in 
such instances like the musical silence of a 
pause between music, they represent the birth 
of beauty from luxury. But the Leyland room 
was overcrowded, with its elaborate ceiling, 
bulky chandelier and collection of blue and 
white porcelain on walnut shelves, broken by 
an endless repetition of perpendicular lines. 
He could not change the architecture of the 
place, so he went to work and decorated the 
few spaces that were available. To decorate 
the inside shutters with a peacock design was a 
unique performance, and to cover the mould- 
ing of the chandelier and the entire ceiling with 
conventionalized peacock feathers, utilizing the 
eyes of the feathers as accents, was even more 
marvellous. In the elegance of its scheme, and 
its individual perfection, splendour and rest- 
fulness it has no equal. 

When Whistler moved into houses of his 
own, he had, like all ambitious house-owners, 
the desire to create a comfortable and beautiful 
home. None of his houses were ever com- 
pletely decorated and finished; they had a look, 
as Pennell tells us, as if he had just moved in, 
or was just moving out; often there were pack- 
ing cases and trunks about, but as much as was 
finished was always beautiful. 


106 The Whistler Book _ 


The ‘“ House Beautiful” or “ White 
House,” was a three-storied house with many 
windows of various sizes, a green slate roof, 
bluish-grey door, Portland stone. facings and 
fantastic wood ornamentation. A queer look- 
ing house, was the verdict of the neighbours, 
and yet it was rather unassuming, so that it 
escaped the attention of the ordinary passer-by. 
While various schemes for each room were in 
his mind, a friend, Mr. Sutherland, director 
of the P. O. Company, called one evening in 
the spring of 1873 to ask Whistler if he would 
help him in the decoration of his home. Whis- 
tler entered upon the idea with enthusiasm and 
prepared the plans. The novelty of the 
schemes was first approved of, but, as they 
developed, Mr. Sutherland began to doubt 
their plausibility. Whistler relieved him from 
all obligations, and determined that he would 
use the ideas in his own home. He went at 
once to work and three weeks later gave a 
dinner to celebrate the event. It was a revela- 
tion of simple delicate colour schemes — every- 
thing was artistic from the mahogany wood- 
work in the “ gold and yellow ’ room down to 
the single flower in some bit of Kaga porcelain. 
In the room everything was yellow, gold or 
brown. The walls were tinted yellow, the cab- 
inet and chimney-piece in one structure were 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 107 


of a bright yellow mahogany, with gilt panels. 
The tiles before it were of a pale sulphur col- 
our. In some niches there was a display of 
orange coloured vases. The peacock designs 
were seen in some panels, but they were carried 
out in yellow and gold. ‘The chairs were cov- 
ered with yellow velvet, the table had brass 
legs and rested on a brown rug. 

One may say that Whistler established three 
simple rules for decoration, which interpreted 
in words, might read like this: 

First: That a house should be a dainty 
and complete thing — from the door-knocker 
to the ridge tile. 

Second: That each room should be restful, 
with ceiling, walls and floors so treated as to 
give a sense of shelter, freedom and complete- 
ness, terminating in the floor at the base. 

Third: that pure, tender colours scientifi- 
cally used give ease and infinite suggestion, and 
should be allowed to play about a room with- 
out coming into boisterous contact with an- 
other. 

Harper Pennington, a friend of Whistler’s, 
has given a humourous but sympathetic de- 
scription of the “ White House:” “ His fur- 
niture was limited to the barest necessities, and, 
frequently, too few of those. Indeed, some wit 
made what he called his “standing joke” 


108 The Whistler Book 


about poor Jimmy’s dearth of seats. Once 
Dick (Corney) Grain said, when shaking 
hands before a Sunday luncheon, “ Ah! Jimmy, 
glad to see you playing before such a full — 
house!”’ glaring around the studio with his 
large protruding eyes in search of something 
to siton. “ What do you mean?” said Whis- 
tler. “ Standing room only,” replied the actor. 
The studio could boast of only four or five 
small cane-seated chairs (always requisitioned 
for the dining room on Sundays), and the most 
uncomfortable bamboo sofa ever made. No- 
body, except some luckless model, sat upon it 
twice. Never a book or any instrument of 
music in his room, nothing that would not con- 
stantly be in use, nothing superfluous; all his 
cares were centred on the wall and woodwork, 
painted in graduated monochromes, of which 
he held the secret. 

The strangest thing about these rooms of his 
was, that they always looked complete. There 
was no space, apparently, for more than he put 
in them. So great was the art in his arrange- 
ments of colour and a few pieces of ordinary 
furniture —a spindle-legged table and three 
or four small painted chairs — that it seemed 
impossible to add so much as a book without 
disturbing the harmonious whole. Curtains, a 
little mirror, one, two, three at the most, per- 








MISS ALEXANDER. 


. 
. 


ARRANGEMENT IN GRAY AND GREEN 





Symphonies in Interior Decoration 109 


fectly placed pictures, a vase, perhaps a pair 
of them, upon the mantel, and matting on the 
floor, were literally all that any room I ever 
knew him to occupy appeared able to contain. 
There was a sense of finish and finality about 
it which a piano and stuffed furniture would 
have disturbed. In the vases, as in two square 
hanging pots upon the wall of the dining-room, 
there were always a few yellow flowers, and 
in a huge old china bowl, that formed the cen- 
trepiece of the dining-room table, swam some 
tiny gold fish — the whole thing was carefully 
composed so as to make the “symphony ” 
complete at those historic Sunday break- 
fasts. | 

His various abodes became a topic of con- 
versation, and a place of pilgrimage, and made 
Whistler, for a while at least, a recognized 
leader in decoration. He developed a style, the 
influence of which has been felt all over Europe. 
The beauty of one colour in the decoration of 
a room, the division of space into simple lines 
and masses, the scarcity of furniture, leaving 
large empty spaces, the use of flowers or a 
few choice pieces of bric-a-brac, we owe largely 
to Whistler. The backgrounds of his “ Miss 
Alexander,” “Carlyle” and “The Artist’s 
Mother ” offer vague glimpses into the realm 
of individualized decoration, and, in a way, 


110 The Whistler Book 








better information about its character than 
a hundred pages of explanation. 

Among the houses that were decorated 
-under Whistler’s supervision are the Aubrey 
house, Kensington; Carlyle cottage, Chelsea; 
the home of Mr. D’Oyle Carte, on the banks 
of the Thames, the music room of Sarasate in 
Paris, for whom it is said, he also designed 
the furniture, and the “‘ Pink Palace,” where 
he lived with his favourite model “ Maud,” in 
1885. 

Occasionally he may have designed the fur- 
niture as a particular favour to a friend, but 
it was not his habit. All he did was to give 
advice or to make the selection. Now and 
then he may have made a hasty sketch to make 
his idea clear to others, but it is not known that 
he ever made a regular design that could have 
been used by a skilful cabinet-maker to work 
from. He merely suggested, and, if conditions 
allowed, to establish beauty of proportions. 
Beauty of design should exist, no matter 
whether it be in the vault of the Sistine Chapel, 
or a writing desk, but colour is imperative. 
His “ style” consisted of little more than se- 
lecting a special colour scheme. He took pride 
in mixing the colours, but never put them on 
himself. An ordinary house-painter served the 
purpose just as well. He looked at a room, 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 111 





decided what parts should be dark or black, 
and then proceeded, in his most scientific man- 
ner, to find a colour, delicate and luminous, that 
would brighten the walls. No doubt, he la- 
boured under favourable conditions. But we 
should not forget that he himself created these 
conditions, in which his artistic personality per- 
haps found its happiest and most characteristic 
expression. 

Exquisite colour and simplicity and the de- 
sire to gain the possible effects of light were 
the leading characteristics of the Whistler 
style. Whistler committed one great error. 
He invariably preferred beauty to comfort. 
He frequently lost sight of the practical, with 
the result that use and beauty were not always 
combined in due proportion. He had little re- 
gard for physical requirements — he himself 
was always active, he had no time to lounge, 
consequently decorative possibilities alone in- 
terested him. It is the same trouble with L’ Art 
Nouveau. Although infinitely superior to the 
soulless copyism of different styles as prac- 
tised by sterling bronze and artistic furniture 
companies, it lacks that true artistic feeling 
for ornamentation, which makes the designer 
at once realize the proper limits of his mate- 
rials and show proper judgment in the uses 
to which he puts them. Whistler was so sen- 


112 The Whistler Book © 


sitive to any discord of line or colour, that he, 
no doubt, would have endured inconvenience 
rather than have destroyed the harmony of an 
effect. Most of us do not care to exist that 
way. | 

A house is built to live in, with as much grace 
as possible, but primarily with a feeling of com- 
fort. Most people would prefer a modern 
apartment to an old palace at Fiesole. The 
material demands of the owner should deter- 
mine the construction of the house. ‘The 
American architects begin to realize this more 
and more. What principle rules the construc- 
tion of a window? ‘The dimensions of the 
room. ‘The windows are not made for the 
street, to be looked at from the outside; they 
are there for the room, to distribute light and 
emphasize any special use they may be put to. 
In a parlour, for instance, people are more apt 
to look out a window than anywhere else; for 
that reason the parlour windows should be 
wider than in other rooms to enable several 
people to look out comfortably at the same 
time. 

A chair is made to sit upon comfortably, 
not merely to look beautiful. The most beau- 
tiful design in a chair will not condone the 
torture that may be caused by a shape that 
does not adapt itself to the human form. The 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 113 


chairs in the Sarasate music room were ex- 
quisite but too stiff to allow any repose. Imag- 
ine listening to a concert sitting erect, with- 
out being able to stretch out one’s limbs. The 
main reason for not having any comfortable 
chairs in his own studio was one of self-pro- 
tection. It was his work-room, and he wished 
to prevent visitors from making it a hall of 
gossip. He preferred to have it empty; a 
promenade to contemplate the next master 
stroke on one of his paintings. 

When Whistler was forced to give up the 
“White House,” and all its beautiful contents 
were dispersed, he was enraged that the suc- 
ceeding owner, “ Arry ” Quilter, took liberties 
with the facade. Quilter had added a bay win- 
dow, and, to Whistler’s idea, destroyed the 
entire effect. After that he never wanted to 
look at it again. On one occasion he expressed 
his anger in a most amusing manner. “To 
think of Arry living in the temple I created,” 
he said. “ He has no use for it. If he had any 
feeling for the symmetry of things he would 
come to me and say: ‘ Here, Whistler, is your 
house, take it, you know its meaning, I don’t. 
Take it and live in it. — But no, he has not 
sense enough to see that.’ ”’ 

Harry Quilter, no doubt, got as much enjoy- 
ment out of the house as Whistler did, although 


114 The Whistler Book 


in a different way. Extreme sensitiveness in 
regard to line, colour and form produces a 
beautiful result, not unlike a handsome paint- 
ing, but I fear it would prove monotonous in 
the long run. A beautiful room is like a simple 
melody, but if the melody has any striking in- 
dividuality, we soon tire of it. If the decora- 
tion could be kept’ entirely neutral the problem 
could be solved satisfactorily. But pink and 
lemon-yellow are not neutral. Not everybody 
would feel happy in a blue room decorated with 
purple fans. Even a woman in a certain gown 
would destroy the harmony, and a definite col- 
our seen all the time, even if unconsciously, 
would soon disturb our mental serenity. The 
Whistler rooms were beautiful when no human 
being moved in them. ‘They were there for 
the photographer, but not for congenial hab- 
itation. 

I believe most people will agree that the most 
beautiful bed is the one in which one can sleep 
most peacefully; the most beautiful chair the 
one which allows perfect relaxation of the body; 
the most beautiful glass that which lends itself 
most gracefully to convey to our lips the special 
beverage it is intended for. This may sound 
unesthetic, but it is common sense. Comfort 
comes first, whenever ordinary living purposes 
are concerned. There is plenty of opportunity 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 115 


for the exploration and exfoliation of: beauty, 
but it should be subordinated to the primary 
causes. 

Whistler’s influence, in my opinion, was 
most beneficial in the arrangement of exhibi- 
tions. An exhibition of paintings, or any work 
of art, is solely an esthetic venture, and should 
be harmonious at any cost. - It is just in this 
that most exhibitions fail. They show the most 
incongruous backgrounds, frames of the most 
incredible malformations, floors that are either 
bare or loudly carpeted and pictures that are 
hung without the slightest consideration for 
their colour values. With the simple use of 
distemper, matting and muslin Whistler per- 
formed wonders. During his short reign as 
president of the Society of British Artists he 
transformed the Suffolk Street galleries from 
a barn into a dignified exhibition hall. Pic- 
tures, frames, walls, floors, lighting and dec- 
orations, each element had its due place, the 
one supplementing the other, and harmonizing, 
instead of conflicting with it, as is so often the 
case. 

Every year saw some fresh assertions of his 
leadership. He took a great deal of interest 
in the arrangement of his own exhibitions, 
making some of them occasions for the exploi- 
tation of his views in new and original ways. 


116 The Whistler Book — 


His initial exhibition in Pall Mall, 1874, where, 
for the first time, walls were brought into har- 
mony with the pictures upon them, and suc- 
cesses in Bond Street, at the Fine Arts Society, 
and at Dowdswell’s, are accepted facts in the 
art history of London. Each one of these ex- 
hibitions especially embodied the demonstration 
of a colour scheme or problem of decoration. 
So there came to pass, in their turn, the ar- 
rangement in “ Flesh Colour and Grey,” the 
harmony in “ Gold and Brown” and the ar- 
rangement in “ Yellow and White,” and oth- 
ers, equally characteristic and original. 

With scrupulous love of detail, he neglected 
nothing and devoted unusual attention to the 
make-up of the catalogue. The brown-coy- 
ered paper catalogue of the exhibition of etch- 
ings held at the Fine Art Society Gallery, in 
1883, was issued with the imprint of the artist’s 
home in Tite Street, Chelsea, and represented 
his peculiar views of typography as well as the 
art of slaying incompetent and hostile review- 
ers with their own weapons. After the title 
of each etching was printed a quotation from 
some criticism, under the general motto (on 
the title page) “ Out of Their Own Mouths 
Ye Shall Judge Them.” 

“'Prodigious amateur—there are years 
when Mr. Whistler gives great promise — In 


Symphonies in Interior Decoration 117 


this instance criticism is powerless— Mr. Whis- 
tler is eminently vulgar — General absence of 
tone — Mr. Whistler has produced too much 
for his reputation ” — are some of the quota- 
tions. ‘The Gallery, on this occasion, was hung 
with white and yellow, had yellow matting on 
the floor, yellow chairs and yellow flower pots. 
The attendants at the door were in yellow and 
white livery, while the artist wore yellow socks, 
and his assistants yellow cravats. 

For the catalogue of the exhibition of paint- 
ings held in 1884, Whistler prepared a page 
of “ propositions ”’ called “ L’Envoie,” which 
we quote elsewhere, and he repeated in the cat- 
alogue of “his heroic kick in Bond Street” in 
1892, the use of quotations from the critics, 
for each title entry. The mottoes on this occa- 
sion were: “'The Voice of a People” and a 
sentence from the speech of the General At- 
- torney at the Whistler v. Ruskin trial, “ I do 
not know when so much amusement has been 
offered to the British public as by Mr. Whis- 
tler’s pictures.” The artist triumphed, the suc- 
cess of the exhibition proved the futility of the 
early judgments. A perusal of this queer doc- 
ument, even to-day, elicits a smile; it is deli- 
cious humour and at the same time a splendid 
assertion of artistic power and self-adulation. 


‘The first New York exhibition of work by 


118 The Whistler Book 





Whistler was held in the old Wunderlich Gal- 
lery, on. Broadway, in March, 1889, when 
sixty-two “ Notes,” “ Harmonies ” and “ Noc- 
turnes”’ were shown, with some accessories of 
yellow hangings, flowers, furniture and foot- 
men imitation of the London exhibition of 
1883. But this sort of thing is rarely success- 
ful in this country. It is apt to be misinter- 
preted, and somehow looks out of place. 

One of the finest achievements of the painter 
is the frame which rightly bears his name. 
The official exhibitions still insist on the usual 
monotony of gilt frames, and the painters 
seem to have neither any particular inclination 
nor the opportunity to create frames of lovely 
forms and well-balanced repeating patterns of 
their own. The frame-makers and art-dealers 
are masters of the situation, and their interests 
are strictly mercenary ones. 

** Attractive enough at first sight, hopelessly 
inartistic on further inspection,” is the verdict 
which one has to give of the average frame of 
to-day. Only a few of our painters oppose the 
mechanically manufactured frames. They have 
their frames specially designed for each pic- 
ture, Stanford White having been the designer 
of quite a number of them. Their frames are 
wide and flat, without corners and centrepieces, 
the repeating pattern is generally a simple, 


‘(ONIHOLA) TUVHM @IDVa 


— 


; i " 


a MY (is tes 


i GT fire 





* 





Symphonies in Interior Decoration 119 


classic ornament, with a tendency toward par- 
allel lines. The architectural designs, with 
Greek columns in the upright sides, are rather 
heavy and less recommendable. Whistler’s 
frames, which served as inspiration to all these 
later-day designers, were conceived in simple 
planes, broken with parallel grooves that were 
restful to the eye as sole ornamentation. 'They 
were original inventions, free from any taint 
of imitation. The gaudy burnished gold effect 
was substituted by pale gold and bronze that 
could be tinted and glazed according to the 
principal colour note of the pictures the frame 
_was designed for. They are so simple that 
it is difficult to improve their design. But he 
did not make them for general use, he merely 
suggested to other painters the advantageous- 
ness of designing their own frames, as is now 
largely customary. 

Whistler has performed a brave deed. If 
he had done nothing else but to improve our 
taste in the arrangement of exhibitions he 
would be remembered for many years. He 
has done far more. He has set up the big ideal 
of simplicity. His eccentricities and harmonies 
of decoration may not live. There are many 
men working on the same problem all over the 
Western hemisphere, and his peculiar style will 
undergo many modifications and improve- 


120 The Whistler Book 


ments, but we should never forget that he was 
one of the first who opened our eyes to a prac- 
ticable and inexpensive way of beautifying our 
home and everyday life. 


CHAPTER VII 
VISIONS AND IDENTIFICATIONS 


ALTHOUGH remarkably sure, efficient and 
successful in various branches of art, Whistler 
has to be ranked primarily as a figure painter. 
In these efforts centre his greatness. He is, 
however, only a figure painter in a modified 
sense. We look in vain for large and elab- 
orate compositions. He achieved his fame as 
a portrait and single figure painter. 

It is strange that a man who had the science 
of painting at his finger ends should limit him- 
self to single figures. Perhaps he knew his 
limitations, or, the limitation of his peculiar 
view-point as to what painting should be and 
could accomplish. Possibly he went too far 
in his elimination. Who can say? An artist 
must be true to his own convictions, and the 
public and critics must accept, and, in time, 
learn to appreciate them. Analysis of an ar- 
tist’s work is interesting only as far as it helps 
one to find the right view-point for contempla- 
tion. 

121 


122 The Whistler Book 





Whistler, of course, had no use for ordinary 
portraiture, as it has been practised for cen- 
turies. He felt, no doubt, that the time for 
idealization as well as realistic interpretation 
of likenesses had passed. No painter can sur- 
pass Van Dyke in the elegant delineation of 
men and women, or Franz Hals in the repre- 
sentation of instantaneous expression. Whis- 
tler wanted a characteristic attitude that ex- 
pressed in a simple pose or movement an entire 
personality. But the purely technical prob- 
lem fascinated him even more, to express him- 
self forcefully in black and dull colours, to 
paint broadly and yet so delicately that no 
brushwork became visible, and to create the 
illusion of atmosphere and space around the 
human form. 

His first picture of importance (started in 
1859), “ At the Piano,” was also the first true 
Whistler, not only the Whistler we admire 
and cherish to-day but the Whistler who has 
exercised an influence on modern painting and 
who will live as one of the prominent figures in 
the history of art. I have rarely seen a modern , 
interior treated with more charm and simplic- 
ity. A woman, apparently Lady Haden, in 
a quaint black old-fashioned gown, is seated 
at the piano, from which she seems to elicit 
some vague melancholy chords, while a little 





ONVId WHHL LV 








Visions and Identifications 123 


girl in white, in a pensive attitude, stands op- 
posite her, in the curve of the instrument. 
The dark silhouette of the mother is beauti- 
fully balanced by the white form of the little 
girl. There is an astonishing number of hori- 
zontal lines in the composition, but somehow 
they are not noticed, at least they do not offend 
the eye. I believe the diagonal tendency of 
the figures counteracts all other lines. One 
peculiarity of Whistler’s interiors and back- 
grounds is that they nearly always represent 
a straight wall. He rarely indulged in per- 
_ spective arrangements. His aim was breadth 
and simplicity, and he avoided all cheap pic- 
torial effect. Technically, it still shows the 
Stevens’ influence — it could almost pass for 
a genre picture — but in poetical conception 
and the suggestion of a mystic atmosphere it 
already predicts all the accomplishments of 
the artist’s prime. 

In his earlier career Whistler occasionally 
made use of more elaborate accessories, as in 
his “ Little White Girl,” “‘ The Princess of 
the Porcelain Land,” and the “ Woman in 
White.” The latter I consider’ one of his 
weakest compositions. The figure is rather 
stiff and too high up in the picture. The car- 
peted floor looks as though it were sloping. 
The bottom of the dress is too distinct. The . 


124 The Whistler Book 


same could be said of the entire contour, the 
lines are not sufficiently graceful to permit 
such clearness of line. Also as a painting of a 
white figure on a white background it is not 
unsurpassed. ‘“ Katherine Emmerich,” by 
Gabriel Max, at the Pinakothek, Munich, 
and the Raffaelli’s “Sleeping Woman,” in 
the Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia, treat the 
same theme but are technically superior. 

Whistler developed slowly. Only grad- 
ually he learned to avoid detail as much as 
possible, and only occasionally accentuated it 
here and there, as a note of contrast to the 
larger planes. The years 1870-90 were the 
most active and important years of his career. 
Nearly all his portraits, those of Frederick 
Leyland, Florence Leyland, Miss Alexander, 
Rose Corder, Sarasate, Sir Henry Irving as 
Philip II, The Fur Jacket, Lady Archibald 
Campbell, The Artist’s Mother, Carlyle, 'The- 
odore Duret, Mme. Cassatt, Mrs. Huth, Lady 
Meux, etc., were painted in that period. 

All these later pictures were painted under 
the ban of Velasquez. In Whistler’s paint- 
ings Velasquez’s art was revived and rejuve- 
nated. He repeats the same inspirations but 
in an etherealized, modernized and individual- 
ized manner. Whistler was triumphantly 


himself, , 


Visions and Identifications 125 


There is much conjecture as to how Whis- 
tler acquired his knowledge of Velasquez. 
Joseph Pennell claims that Whistler never 
went to the Prado in Madrid. Duret tells us, 
that during a trip to Spain in 1882, he in- 
tended to go to Madrid, but on the way was 
fascinated by the scenery around Guethary 
(north of Biarritz) to such an extent that he 
prolonged his stay until it was time to return, 
without having crossed the Pyrenees. Others, 
with a quizzical mien, say that he might have 
gone without letting anybody know of it. It 
is hardly credible that he did not see the 
“Dwarfs,” the “Spinners,” the “ Mercury 
and Argus,” the “ Maria Theresa,” “ La Meni- 
nas,” “ Adsop,” the “ Menippus” and the 
“ Surrender of Breda.” 

However it really matters little. He had 
seen the portraits of the Hermitage at an early 
age, and was thoroughly acquainted with the 
various portraits of Philip II at the London 
National Gallery. In this age of handbooks 
one can study Gozzoli in a New York garret. 
Of course a trip to Florence might prove prof- 
itable, but the right man, with the proper 
amount of imagination, knows no obstacle. 
His intuition will help him to get thoroughly 
imbued with any subject he is bent upon 
knowing. 


126 The Whistler Book 


The portraits are all single figure studies, 
with a plain or simple background. ‘They do 
nothing. They merely convey the charm of 
a personality as seen in an arrangement of 
colour. Whistler was a keen observer of facial 
expression and gesticulation and still more so 
of that other no less telling kind of expression, 
which depends upon our general bearing, and 
upon the way we move our limbs and body 
while we are trying to convey our thoughts 
and intentions to our neighbours. But this 
was not the principal theme, as it is of so many 
portrait painters. To him the very soul of 
art was elimination: to leave out all that could 
be left out. He realized that he could not 
proceed in the elimination process as gaily and 
liberally as in his nocturnes. He needed a 
more convincing sense of form, a certain re- 
gard for detail — no matter how broadly ren- 
dered — and a feeling for accurate line. This 
fragmentary representation of a human being 
requires the keenest artistic feeling, to know 
exactly when one has to stop in the process 
of reducing the multiplicity of nature to sim- 
ple forms, of discarding superficial traits of 
the figure and retaining only the essential 
ones. For elimination is only half the game; 
selection makes up the rest. ‘The sureness 
with which Whistler stops just upon the bor- 


Visions and Identifications 127 





der line proves his genius. However vague 
and enveloped his line may have become, it has 
never been pushed beyond the point where it 
falls into meaningless and spiritless formless- 
ness. 

Whistler’s portraiture may be summed up 
as a never-ceasing study to express a human 
personality in the subtlest way imaginable. 
At bottom of all that he creates, there lies the 
desire to make his figures betray their char- 
acter, emotions, and their whole personality by 
means of a tonal vision. 

In the portrait of Frederick Leyland, the 
“Medici of Liverpool” (painted 1873), 
Whistler, for the first time, introduced the 
plain background without accessories, endeav- 
ouring to subordinate it to the figure. In the 
portrait the figure occupies the entire length 
of the canvas, and yet is enveloped in atmos- 
phere. I believe this is largely due to the 
vagueness of outline and the accentuation of 
the principal points of the human form by 
touches of light, as the headlights on the silver 
buckle of the shoe, the hand on the hip and the 
gray overcoat over the left arm. The blacks 
in this picture have a marvellous quality. The 
painting of a black evening suit against a 
pitch black background is one of the master- 
pieces of modern technique, over which future 


128 The Whistler Book 








ages will not cease to marvel. Also the 
shadow on the grey floor helps. The pose is 
dignity itself, but it seems to me that the artist 
did not quite succeed in carrying out his own 
ideal. The figure makes the impression as if 
it were stepping out of the picture, like a 
Rubens. 

The same problem occupied him for years. 
He succeeded much better in the “ Rose 
Corder ” and “ The Fur Jacket; ” and in the 
“Lady Archibald Campbell,” also called the 
“Yellow Buskin,” he actually solved the prob- 
lem. The picture is at the Wilstach Gallery, 
Philadelphia, and everybody who has seen it 
will realize, or feel, at least, that the figure 
is represented as if actually moving in space. 

Most of his pictures were painted in ordi- 
nary rooms, without a top light, partly, no 
doubt, because he wanted to paint his sitters 
under natural, not artificial conditions. Also 
the “ Rose Corder” portrait, painted in 1876, 
carries out this sensation. This portrait, which 
was purchased by Richard A. Canfield from 
its former owner, Graham Robertson, is 
entitled “An Arrangement in Black and | 
Brown.” The differentiation of brown in the 
hair, fur, felt hat, feather and floor are so 
subtle and beautiful, that it would be almost 
impossible to go any further in the exploita- 





Owned by Richard A. Canfield 


ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN: MISS ROSE 
CORDER. 





Visions and Identifications 129 








tion of one colour. The person who can ap- 
preciate the subtleties of these cool, almost 
neutral colours, appreciates Whistler. It was 
his main ambition, even to that extent that he 
wished the beholder to know of his intention. 
And that is no doubt the main reason why he 
called his portraits “ Arrangements and Har- 
monies,’ even as other artists call their por- 
traits “ Interpretations,” and their sculptured 
busts “Versions.” ‘Titles are really of no 
importance. ‘They are, at the best, only an- 
notations, but, as long as they are deemed 
necessary, they ought to give a vague sug- 
gestion of the subject matter or reveal the 
technical aim of the painter. Whistler’s titles 
are frequently too long, but they generally 
convey some direct and valuable information 
to the beholder. 

The “ Florence Leyland ” portrait, painted 
in 1873 — at The Brooklyn Museum of Art 
and Sciences, — is also much liked by painters. 
It always seemed to me a trifle dismal in tone. 
The greys have a muddy look and the back- 
ground is too black and opaque. It is a study 
in greys and blacks. The dress, the floor, and 
the feather of the hat are grey. The hat itself, 
the gloves and the bow are black. Even the 
handkerchief and the white ruffles that fall 
over the gloves are grey. The design is ele- 


130 The Whistler Book 


gant and visible, but swallowed up in the col- 
our. Its success or failure depends upon your 
psychological appreciation of colours. If you 
like that particular combination you will ad- 
mire the picture, and otherwise you will not, 
and no argument will persuade you to accept 
it as a masterpiece. 

Whistler’s unusually low key in the major- 
ity of his portraits strikes us as peculiar, even 
to this day. There are no gold, rose and 
mauve flesh tints of a Titian to be found on 
his canvases. “There is no bloom of flesh 
which emulates the gleam of a pearl or the 
luminous grain of a camelia.” But the fault- 
finding is largely the effect of our being accus- 
tomed to high-keyed portraiture. Whistler 
explained this, in his drastic manner, in an 
article in the London World, July, 1886, 
which we quote in full: 

“ The notion that I paint flesh lower in tone 
than it is in nature is entirely based upon the 
popular superstition as to what flesh really 
is — when seen on canvas; for the people 
never look at nature with any sense of pic- 
torial appearance —for which reason — by 
the way — they also never look at a picture 
with any sense of nature, but unconsciously 
from habit, with reference to what they see 
in other pictures. | 


Visions and Identifications 131 


“ Now in the usual ‘picture of the year’ 
there is but one flesh that should do service 
under all circumstances, whether the person 
painted be in the soft light of the room or in 
the glare of the open. The one aim of this 
unsuspecting painter is to make his man stand 
out from the frame — never doubting that on 
the contrary, he should really, and in truth 
absolutely does, stand within the frame — and 
at a depth behind it equal to the distance at 
which the painter sees his model, and nothing 
could be more offensively inartistic than this 
brutal attempt to thrust the model on the 
hitherside of this window. Lights have been 
heightened, until the white of the tube alone 
remains — shadows have been deepened until 
black alone is left. Scarcely a feature stays 
in its. place, so fierce .is its intention of 
‘firmly’ coming forth; and in the midst of 
this unseemly struggle for prominence, the 
gentle truth has but a sorry chance, falling 
flat and flavourless and _ without force. 
Whereas, could the people be induced to turn 
their eyes but for a moment, with the fresh 
power of comparison, upon their fellow crea- 
tures as they pass in the gallery, they might 
be made dimly to perceive, though I doubt it, 
so blind is their belief in the bad, how little 
they resemble the impudent images on the 


132 The Whistler Book 


wall! how ‘quiet’ in colour they are, how 
grey and low in tone. And then it might be 
explained to their riveted intelligence how 
they had mistaken meretriciousness for mas- 
tery and by what methods the imposture had 
been practised upon them.” 

People on the whole prefer brightness to 
esthetic gloom, and refuse to accept the un- 
adulterated truth. “A _ beautiful picture! 
But I would not like to see my wife or mother 
painted that way,” is the general verdict at 
a Whistler exhibition. And it includes peo- 
ple who should know better. Do not even 
learned critics excuse the low-keyed, ash grey 
tints of Velasquez faces by asserting that he 
wished to symbolize the doom of Spanish feu- 
dalism by their paleness? Ridiculous! A 
proud Spanish cavalier himself, such a thought 
would never have entered his head. He 
painted them with a bloodless enervated com- 
plexion, because they had that kind of com- 
plexion and because he, as a realistic painter, 
objected to any idealizing process. 

It can, however, be safely stated that Whis- 
tler frequently went too far in his search for 
dark tonalities. But there was a reason for 
it. No primary colour is agreeable with black. 
If black is the favourite colour he must ex- 
clude yellow, red, and blue or paint them 


Visions and Identifications 133 


exceedingly low as Tissot has done in his 
“Prodigal Son ”’ series. Yellow is the easiest 
colour to manage, as black impoverishes its 
tone. The secondary colours, like orange, 
green, and violet, lend themselves more read- 
ily to any scheme where black furnishes the | 
prominent note, but they must be dull, obscure 
and possess no brilliancy. White, on the other 
hand, as Whistler so fully realized in his 
“Lady Meux, No. I,” will always produce by 
its extreme difference a harmony of contrast. 
The most suitable colours for a combina- 
tion with black are the neutral colours, like 
grey and brown, or delicate: tints, like pink 
and olive, russet and citrine. At these con- 
clusions every student of the harmony and con- 
trasts of colour must naturally arrive. And 
Whistler conquered his knowledge by actual 
experiments. It was no whim. As long as 
he favoured black he could not change his col- 
our schemes. His colouring had to be kept 
cool and the few tones of luminous colours 
that he introduced had to be broken and neu- 
tralized. The scientific facts underlying his 
colour moods should answer all futile ques- 
tions of why he selected such deep and sombre 
colour combinations. We all realize that he 
is no colourist in the sense of Memling, Pin- 
turicchio, Titian, Rubens, Fragonard, Dela- 


134 The Whistler Book 








croix, Makart or Roybet, he does not even 
show us as much variety as Constable or Is- 
raels or an Impressionist. 

I say Impressionist, because an Impression- 
ist’s canvas can be deprived of colour (and 
how many are) as much as any black-in-black 
arrangement of a Tissot or Ribot. ‘The high 
key does not save a picture from being colour- 
less. Colour means the full use of the palette, 
green, blue, red, and yellow, on one canvas 
as distinct sensations and not modified into a 
general tint. The majority of Impressionists 
are tonalists not colourists. Franz Hals and 
Velasquez were fond of black and greys but 
rarely lacked the sense of conveying a delicate 
colour impression. Whistler, who, in his por- 
traits is a great tonalist but never a colourist, 
displays the same faculty in his best work, but 
in some instances his subtle touch seems to 
have forsaken him, and the result was a dull 
tonality as in his “Florence Leyland.” <A 
similar colour scheme but of great charm is 
represented in “La Belle Américaine” (the 
only picture that in subject matter bears any. 
relation to America). The grey tight-fitting 
gown and the black boa around the neck in 
conjunction with the assertive and yet so non- 
chalant pose have a singular charm. As soon 
as the outlines of a figure are too much oblit- 


Visions and Identifications 135 


erated the charm of colour seems to vanish. 
Colour alone cannot hold it. It demands form 
to balance it. Whistler said that painting was 
every bit as much a science as mathematics. I 
fear at times he considered it too much a sci- 
ence, at least as far as his colour was con- 
cerned. He painted figures, indoors, so low in 
tone that he could have added a streak of real 
sunshine at its proper value to the picture. 
If his darkest canvases grow darker still with 
age, they will be almost indistinguishable. 
But his scientific attitude rarely played him 
- false in composition. 

Having painted only single figures, it has 
been doubted whether he had any extensive 
knowledge of figure composition. This seems 
to be a futile question. It is my contention 
that he limited himself to one figure represen- 
tation, because he knew all about “ Old Mas- 
ter ” composition. 

He wanted one big total effect and did not 
see how it could have been reached, or had been 
ever reached by anybody except by one single 
figure. He had nothing in common with the 
representation of history, legend or myth and 
much less of genre, realism of the gutter, or 
descriptive painting. He wanted to represent 
modern men and women in the costume of 
to-day. So he chose the single standing or 


136 The Whistler Book 


_ $$$ ————————————————————— 
seated figure. Why did he never paint a 
group! Perhaps he had found it impossible 
to obtain in a more elaborate composition the 
result that he cherished most. A painter must 
paint from the model, to approach any degree 
of verity. A Monticelli may “ fake ” or paint 
from imagination, but his colour masses are a 
different proposition than life-size figures. 
The fact must be before one’s eyes to render 
them accurately. One figure in modern cos- 
tume offers such facts in a natural manner. 
An elaborate group can be secured only with 
difficulty, and will never look quite natural. 
Whistler knew his strength, and did not waste 
superior energy for a less satisfactory result. 
This was scientific restraint. 

And how he controlled the various forms of 
representation. He invariably chose the most 
favourable position. A standing figure offers 
the widest scope of characterization when 
shown in a full front view. Nearly all his 
men, Sarasate, Duret, and Irving are drawn 
in that position. But a seated figure is shown 
to the best advantage in a clear profile, every 
student of composition must arrive at the con- 
clusion, and there was nothing else to do but 
to paint his “ Mother” and “ Carlyle ” in that 
attitude. Women on the other hand are more 
picturesque in outline, also look well, stand- 


Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK: LADY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL 
THE YELLOW BUSKIN). 





s 





Visions and Identifications 137 








ing, in profile with slightly turned face, viz., 
“Rose Corder,” “ Miss Alexander,” ‘‘ The 
Yellow Buskin,” ‘The Fur Jacket,” “ Mrs. 
Huth,” “Lady Meux No. 2.” Also in the 
delineation of the human face he preferred the 
simple full-face view, with just a slight shift 
to the right or left to show the line of the nose. 
The three-quarter view is undoubtedly more 
picturesque, and when he painted small heads, 
among them his own, he frequently used it. 
In the larger portraits he wanted dignity, 
breadth, and simplicity and he sacrificed every- 
thing to that effect. 

The portraits of Miss Cecily Henrietta 
Alexander (painted in 1872), and Mr. Theo- 
dore Duret (painted in 1883), show perhaps 
in the clearest way that he always worked on 
the same problem. ‘They are, one may say, 
the uniting link between the Japanese pe- 
riod and the “Carlyle” and “The Artist’s 
Mother,” his most finished and perfect work. 
They have more colour and grace than most 
of his pictures, and show the figures with some 
accessories. Both linger in one’s mind as a 
vision of select refinement. 

Little Miss Alexander, with her plumed hat 
in her hand and her white dress relieved by 
grey and black accents against a general back- 
ground, depicts a “‘ pose” such as the painter. 


188 The Whistler Book 


seldom indulged in. There is a flavour of ar- 
istocratic coquetry, a flavour of Gainsbor- 
ough and Boldini in this attitude, an attribute 
that in this instance is as important to the pic- 
ture as the unusual colour scale. It took him 
years to finish this picture, and nobody can > 
appreciate how many weary hours of anguish 
it cost the little model. More than once it 
reduced her to tears. One day as she was en- 
tering the studio she met Carlyle, who was 
sitting also for his portrait. “ Puir lassie! 
Puir lassie!”’ he said. But Whistler had no 
pity. He had but little consideration for his 
sitters or models; he forgot their presence as 
soon as he became entangled in the intricacies 
of his technique. 

The Duret on the other hand shows superior 
characterization. It may be because the figure 
is more clearly silhouetted, the outlines of 
the gaunt figure are as plain as they can be. 
The painter tried to brighten up the black 
suit problem with a light background and pink 
domino. The strange combination of an awk- 
ward shape, with almost a touch of brutality 
in its make-up, and the gay insignia of an 
opera ball, the domino and red fan, arouse a 
feeling of grotesque drollery, and yet it is all 
so forbiddingly proud that one is strongly 
fascinated by the canvas. 


Visions and Identifications 139 


One of the most important portraits that 
compete with the Leyland, Duret and Miss 
Alexander is the “ Arrangement in Black: — 
Portrait of the Senor Pablo de Sarasate,” 
painted about 1884. 

Here we have the true Whistler atmosphere, 
the blurred contour of the violinist’s figure, 
which melts into the background without los- 
ing the form, the elimination of all unnecessary 
details and accessories, and the concentration 
of light on the face, shirt-front, hands and 
cuffs. It is astonishing how few bright planes 
_ there are in most of Whistler’s portraits. In 
the “‘ Sarasate ” the lighted planes scarcely oc- 
cupy one-thirtieth part of the picture. The 
rest is all darkness, except the vague shimmer 
on the floor, suggesting the footlight on the 
platform of a concert hall. The light floor 
is one of the leading characteristics of his sin- 
gle standing figures. It helps to suggest 
space. There is depth in the background; it 
is not opaque like most backgrounds but vi- 
brant with subtle differentiations of values. 
The figure is standing in space. One might 
think at first that this is brought about by the 
smallness of the figure. | 

Joseph Pennell says that “what Whistler 
was trying to do was to paint the man on a 
shadowy concert platform as the audience saw 


140 The Whistler Book 





him.” Sarasate is intended to look small, less 
than life-size, as he would appear upon the 
concert stage. I do not agree with this. I 
have heard Sarasate play in Europe and 
America but never saw him on a shadowy 
platform. ‘To me the conception is a much 
bigger one. ‘This is not the Sarasate of ordi- 
nary life, nor is it the one we know from the 
concert hall. The artist has attempted to sug- 
gest the whole atmosphere that surrounds the 
life of musical genius. And he accomplished 
it by introducing a male figure in an ordinary 
dress-suit with a shimmering shirt front, 
the outlines of which arelost in vibrant empti- 
ness. Only the violin and bow occupy a 
certain prominence. “All is balanced by 
the bow,” as Whistler remarked to Sidney 
Starr. 

The figure always seemed to me a trifle 
small. I personally prefer the Leyland size, 
as it is more dignified. It does not seem log- 
ical to sacrifice beauty and breadth to a mere 
illusion. 

The whole tonal school and _ pictorial 
photography in particular have been influ- 
enced by the “Pablo Sarasate,” now at the 
Carnegie Art Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsyl- 
vania. It gives unparalleled joy to the fol- 
lowers of dark tonalities. As usual the imi- 


Visions and Identifications 141 


tators — painters as well as photographers — 
have exaggerated the extreme rather than nor- 
mal aspect of the painter’s art. 

For what is most to be admired technically 
in Whistler is the frugality, the thinness of his 
brushwork, that, despite the low pitch and flat- 
ness of its colour tints, reveals an astounding 
variety, subtlety and virility, a vibrancy that 
seems to radiate from the canvas. For un- 
obtrusiveness of paint Whistler has few rivals. 
In comparison with him Monet seems a ple- 
beian and Sargent a sleight of hand performer. 
_ He combines the fanaticism of a perfect tech- 
nique with the search for truth and a desire 
to create new sensations, and expresses our 
breathless modern life, with all its intricate 
moods. His art revels in the realms of imag- 
ination unknown to Manet’s realism, and 
Zorn’s and Sargent’s pyrotechnical displays of 
technique look barbarous in comparison to 
Whistler’s smooth, fluid, unerring brushwork, 
which masters all the optical illusions of this 
world with wizard-like dexterity. 

He created a style for himself, and his space 
and colour arrangements have exerted a deep 
and lasting influence on modern painting. 
Whether he is as great a painter as some crit- 
ics make him — whether he is as “big” as 
Franz Hals, for instance, is still a matter of 


142 The Whistler Book 


discussion. He will always live in the his- 
tory of art as being the first man who com- 
bined the beauties of Eastern design with the 
principles of Western art. The mysterious 
atmosphere of some of his canvases (from 
which solid forms emerge or recede into), is a 
poetic translation of Japanese suggestive- 
ness — which does not care to create an illu- 
sion, but rather suggests it. Whistler in his 
portraits was not an initiator of a new art like 
Monet in his landscapes. He was the last and 
most perfect of an old school. He merely 
pushed to their extreme consequence the prin- 
ciples which all great painters since Velasquez 
have championed. He followed more closely 
what one might call the thematic development 
of tone, and discerned more plainly the sig- 
nificance and mystery that lie hidden in 
blurred objects. 

The portrait of the zsthete, Gone Robert 
de Montesquiou de Fezensac, who honoured 
this shore with a visit (painted in 1890-91), was 
one of the last pictures of this series. Whistler 
undertook several portraits of this peculiar, 
high-strung personality but finished only one. 
He explained “ that it was impossible to pro- 
duce the same masterpiece twice over — as 
difficult as for a hen to lay the same egg over 
twice.” The pose is one of hauteur as be- 





Owned by Richard A. Canfield 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GOLD: COMTE DE 
MONTESQUIOU. 





= E i Te, ry 


Visions and Identifications 143 


comes the author of “ Les Hortenses Bleus.” 
He wears a dress-suit, and a dark overcoat 
with a grey lining is thrown over his arm while 
the other-arm thrusts forth a slender cane-like 
sword. As it is so frequently the case with 
Whistler’s arrangement, it is more a play with 
colour than a character delineation. A char- 
acter delineation plus tone is surely more ad- 
mirable than mere tonality or mere character 
delineation. In his “ Leyland,” “ Mother,” 
* Duret,” and “Carlyle” he accomplished 
both. In this one he only excelled in one. I 
also fail to see why he called it “ Black and 
Gold,” as I cannot diseover the slightest sug- 
gestion of gold. It is brown and black. There 
is little use in reviewing each of his arrange- 
ments separately as they all carry out the same 
principle. 

In his two, perhaps, most important pic- 
tures, which are generally conceded to be his 
masterpieces, his “Carlyle” and “The Ar- 
tist’s Mother,” both arrangements in black 
and grey, the painter is a trifle more precise in 
line. He depicted, as background, actual walls 
of a room and made an unusual excursion to 
the domain of space arrangement. Had he at 
the time arrived at the conclusion that a deep 
sentiment, no matter how vague, as that of a 
great philosopher and an adorable woman, can 


144 The Whistler Book 








be rendered successfully by illusion rather 
than suggestion! 

The “Carlyle” was exhibited as early as 
1877, and purchased after many weary nego- 
tiations by the Glasgow City Gallery in 1891. 
It is a masterpiece of characterization, of tone 
and space composition. It is a most formi- 
dable object lesson to any portraitist. Notice 
how purely simple and well balanced the com- 
position of “ Carlyle” is, how all the details 
of dress have been eliminated, how the outline 
has been accentuated against the background, 
how naturally the figure is seated, and how 
well it has been placed in space. ‘There is an 
atmosphere around the figure. One feels that 
the person is seated in a room. 

The same can be said of the composition in 
the portrait of “ 'The Artist’s Mother,” at the 
Luxembourg Gallery, Paris. It was first ex- 
hibited at the Royal Academy in London. In 
the season of 1882 it appeared in America, and 
then was shown at the Paris Salon in 1888. 
It was also seen in Munich, and was finally 
purchased by the French Government in 1891. 
The simple pose, the delicate way of handling 
detail in the lace cap and the hands, the mas- 
terly space arrangement, produced largely by 
the rectangular curtain and the silhouette of 
the figure, the fine sense of values, and the 





City Art Gallery, Glasgow ; 
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY. THOMAS CARLYLE. 





Visions and Identifications 145 


clever way in which he utilizes a few frames to 
break the monotony of the background all have 
been commented upon a hundred times. No 
modern painting has been more talked about 
and more frequently imitated than this one, 
but none of the adaptations has reached or 
surpassed its “ pathos and tender depth of ex- 
pression.” ‘Technically it is perfect. 

It is not the technique, however, which prin- 
cipally interests us in the picture. Just as in 
his “ Sarasate,” Whistler attempted in his 
“Mother ” to give us the whole atmosphere 
that surrounds a personality. Old Mrs. Whis- 
tler was a stern Presbyterian and her religious 
views must have been trying to her son. Yet 
“Jimmy,” though he used to give a queer 
smile when he mentioned them, never in any 
way complained of the old lady’s strict Sabba- 
tarian notions, to which he bowed without re- 
monstrance. This differentiation of character 
between mother and son explains much of the 
_ rigid Quaker-like and yet so sympathetic pose 
of the picture. 

The artist does not merely represent his old 
mother. He endowed the old woman, sitting 
pensively in a grey interior, with one of the 
noblest and mightiest emotions the human soul 
is capable of — the reverence and calm we feel 
in the presence of our own aging mother. And 


146 The Whistler Book 


with this large and mighty feeling, in which all 
discords of mannerisms are dissolved, and, by 
the tonic values of two ordinary dull colours, 
he succeeded in writing an epic, a symphony 
domestica, of superb breadth and beauty — 
a symbol of the mother of all ages and all 
lands, slowly aging as she sits pensively amidst 
the monotonous colours of modern life. Noth- 
ing simpler and more dignified has been cre- 
ated in modern art. 


“UHHLOW' S.LSILYV GZHL :AVHOD GNV MOVId NI LNYWAONVYUV 
swung ‘hwayoy binoquaxrnT 








CHAPTER VIII 
IN QUEST OF LINE EXPRESSION 


“ Artist, thou art king! Art is the true 
empire! When thy hand has drawn a perfect 
line, the cherubims themselves descend to de- 
light themselves in it as in a mirror,” wrote 
Merodack Peladan, in his preface to the Cat- 
alogue of the Salon de la Rose-Croix (1892). 
He expressed a great truth, that macabre and — 
cabalistic poet-artist. 

There is nothing more exquisite, more en- 
joyable, perhaps, to the art lovers than a per- 
fect line. Pure line expression, as it is found 
in Diirer, Harunobu, Raphael, and Ingres, is 
a pleasure apart from all other pictorial rep- 
resentations. It is more intellectual and more 
remote from all sensuous pleasure than colour, 
tone, light or shade. It is a language of itself 
which enables the artist to convey an abstract 
impression of his individuality. 

And no medium expresses line in as pure 
and unadulterated a fashion as etching. It 
makes the most of it. Etching is the true wor- 

147 


148 The Whistler Book 


ship of linear expression. In all other medi- 
ums there is a slight desire to hide line, it 
merely serves as an accessory. In etching it 
reigns supreme. There are no obstacles to the 
etching needle except incompetence. It trans- 
lates every wish of the artist, the slightest ac- 
cent or deviation with unerring precision and 
vitality. The Japanese, no doubt, achieved 
the greatest mastery of the drawn line that 
has ever been known to history. Only the line 
form of the Greek competes with it. The Jap- 
anese artists revelled in line expression, and it 
passed through all possible variations, from 
the sweep of Tanyu’s brush and the classic 
curve of Harunobu to the angular Diirer-like 
twist of Hokusai. But even their line, un- 
less made by the brush, cannot rival in virility, 
delicacy and precision the line of a master 
etcher. 

In his paintings Whistler sacrificed line too 
much. He felt that he had to find a medium 
in which he had absolute freedom to satisfy his 
desire and so he alighted upon etching. A 
draughtsman so sure of himself, so adroit at 
realizing by simple contrasts of black and 
white all the effects of which that austere, 
monochromatic medium is capable of, did not, 
one supposes, find himself unprepared to use 
the needle, and, indeed, at the first attempt, 


oGAr VIEILLE 


AUX LOQUES’”’ (ETCHING). 





onset 








AN 


In Quest of Line Expression 149 


Whistler proved himself a successful etcher. 
True enough, his earliest work, like “ La Vi- 
eille aux Loques,” “La Marchande de Mou- 
tarde,” “‘ La Cuisine,” and “ La Mére Gérard,” 
betrays a keen sense of the beauty of material; 
but they are, after all, conventional produc- 
tions and show a slight influence of Rem- 
brandt’s etchings and the Little Dutch Mas- 
ters. They are attempts at realistic picture- 
making, and, no matter how broadly the ob- 
jects are conceived and carried out, look spotty. 
The light and shade division could be more sci- 
entific, and the tonality consequently a finer 
one. ‘Too many little things fill out the pic- 
torial scheme. He still worked for the effect 
of dignified completeness and had not yet 
learned to apply his later sense of elimination. 
The certainty and freedom of his draughts- 
manship is always admirable. ‘There is no 
academic pedantry in his drawing and no lJabo- 
rious effort. The beholder is charmed by its 
fascinating expressiveness and delightful flexi- 
bility. His perspective views and figure sub- 
jects convey an impression of unhesitating 
knowledge of form and contour and of an 
exact understanding of subtleties of modelling. 
They show no struggle with difficulties of 
statement; everything seems to come right, . 
as a matter of course, and to fit together natu- 


150 The Whistler Book 


rally without any deliberate intention on his 
part. 

It was in 1855-58, during a trip to Alsace 
Lorraine with Delonney, an artist friend, when 
he made his first attempts at etching. A few 
dated prints like the “ Scene in Alsatian Vil- 
lage” and “ Street at Saverne ” of this period 
are highly treasured by collectors, and pro- 
nounced as good as any that came after. A 
few years later, in the sixties, he took up the 
process more seriously and remained its ardent 
disciple ever afterwards. In the eighties he 
devoted more time to his etchings, pastels and 
water colours than to larger paintings. His 
fastidious love for rare and picturesque sub- 
jects made him select a number of favourite 
sketching grounds. ‘They were the Thames 
embankments, of which he never tired, the 
French towns of Tours, Bourges and Loches, 
also Venice, and the Netherlands. Of course, 
like every true artist, he etched everything 
that appealed to him. There are numerous 
London and Paris sketches, scenes from A jac- 
cio and Algiers, and many figure composi- 
tions, character studies and portraits. But 
his French, Thames, Belgium, Holland and 
two Venice series are probably the most in- 
teresting from a collector’s point of view, as 
they combine in a more pronounced manner 














Ritica= 


Oe 





STREET IN SAVERNE (ETCHING). 





In Quest of Line Expression 151 


direct Whistlerian methods with the quest of 
line expression. 

His first designs of the Thames series were 
made in 1859. Some few themes recur with 
many variations, such as the battered shop- 
fronts of Chelsea, “‘ The Pool,’ the London 
bridges, the barges on the river, and the wharfs, 
warehouses and factories, like “‘ Price’s Candle 
Works.” A few years later he made a trip 
through the northern part of France, and one 
of the finest results was the “ learned, spirited ” 
** Hotel de Ville at Loches.” 

In 1879 he made his first trip to Venice, 
stayed fourteen months and made forty-four 
etchings during the time, including “ Little 
Venice,” “San Biagio,” and “'The Garden.” 
In later years Holland attracted him almost 
as much as the city of the Adriatic. It is in- 
teresting to note his absolute disdain of lit- 
erary associations. ‘To him Venice was not, 
as to Heine, the city of Shakespeare. When 
he crossed the Rialto and Piazzetta he did not 
hear the voice of Shylock lamenting for his 
daughter, nor did he conjure up splendid vis- 
ions of decayed power, as did Ruskin in his 
“Stones of Venice.” ‘The Venice of Claude 
Lorraine and Turner existed for him as little 
as the panoramic suavity of a Canaletto. He 
was satisfied with sitting at a little trattoria 


152 The Whistler Book 





near the old Post Office, at Florian’s, or in his 
simple sitting room at San Barnaba, dreaming 
of some linear expression of an old bridge or 
archway, of some enchanted fragment of vis- 
ion, or a peculiar flush of colour over the Grand 
Canal. To him Venice was a modern city.. He 
only saw what was actually there, and when 
it fascinated him, he seized his burin or crayon 
and endeavoured, with frank directness, to 
record the pictorial event. He invariably 
chose subjects that appealed to the experi- 
enced collector rather than the general public. 
He never idealized or conventionalized, nor 
did he belong to those who only see the ugly 
_ side of life, its squalor and unpicturesqueness. 

Some of Whistler’s admirers have pro- 
nounced him not only the greatest etcher of 
the day, but of all times, and compared him 
to Rembrandt. This comparison is not with- 
out justification, inasmuch as Whistler was 
not a professional etcher but a great artist 
who, like Rembrandt, took up the etching 
point as an instrument for new expression. 
They both sketched with wonderful freedom. 
They were no mechanics; under their hands the 
point lost the engraving look and became won- 
derfully free. Still, to say that Whistler was 
the best’ etcher of the day is rather a sweeping 
expression. Lalanne, Jacquemart, Appian, 





-~ 
aad. Asay 


| paar 00 e 


I 





PORTRAIT OF DROUET (ETCHING). 





In Quest of Line Expression 153 


Veyrasset, Meyrion, Zorn, Pennell, Raffaelli, 
Rops and Klinger are all wonderful etchers. 
In painting, his mastership is indisputable. In 
etching I do not feel it quite as keenly. There 
is not the slightest doubt that etchings like 
“Jo,” “ The Adam and Eve Tavern,” “ Chel- 
sea,” “Soupe a Trois Sous,” “'The Lion’s 
Wharf,” the beautiful little still life “ The 
Wine Glass,” the portrait of “ Becquet,” “ Un- 
safe Tenement,” the “ Battersea Bridge” of 
1879 — “a masterpiece of masterpieces ’’ — 
show uncommon ability, which gives up every- 
thing to the right point and never beyond it. 
One of the most ravishing designs is his “ Girl 
ona Couch.” “ The Model Resting,” quite dif- 
ferent in execution, is scarcely less captivating. 
But much of his work seems to be a little too 
elaborate, too overcrowded with line work. I 
do not particularly admire prints like his 
“ Southampton Docks,” “ Portrait of Drouet ”’ 
or “ The Silent Canal.” ‘This is more aston- 
ishing when one compares them with the frugal 
technique of his paintings. 

A rather just, though somewhat pedantic, 
criticism came from the pen of Hamerton in 
1881: 

“Amongst living men Whistler may be 
cited as an etcher of rare quality in one impor-. 
tant respect, the management of lines, but his 


154 The Whistler Book 


etchings owe much of strange charm which 
they possess to Chinese disdain of tonal values, 
and to wayward caprice, loving it here and 
scorning it there, which, being strictly personal, 
can only be of use as an example in one sense, 
that it shows how valuable in art is genuine 
personal feeling. Whistler is an admirably 
delicate draughtsman when he likes; there are 
passages in his etchings which are as striking 
in their way as feats of execution, as the most 
wonderful passages of Meyrion.” 

There canbe little fault found with this 
statement. I take objection only to the “ way- 
ward caprice”’ and the “ Chinese disdain.” I 
think that Whistler learned “loving detail 
here and scorning it there” only in his later 
works. It came out strongly in compositions 
like “ The Balcony,” “‘ Doorway,” and “ Pal- 
ace ”’ and obtained full mastery in his “ Dutch ” 
series, above all the fascinating “ Amsterdam 
Canal” piece, when the lines were so vague 
and subtle that deep biting was impossible and 
a few impressions would efface the design. As 
for the Chinese disdain of tonal values, I think 
it is Whistler’s particular merit that he grad- 
ually abolished tonality altogether, and, in his 
later work, rarely resorted to cross-hatching. 
He laid more stress upon the simplification of 
line. Etchings can produce tonal sensations, 


BLACK LION WHARF (ETCHING). 





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AS Lee. 





In Quest of Line Expression 1855 


but it is surely not the main object to strive for. 
Whistler followed: Haden’s doctrine that the 
line ought to be preserved as much as possible, 
and made the most of it. If the linear expres- 
sion is sacrificed in etching there is no execu- 
tive expression left; there is no brushwork to 
take its place; the etcher is working with a 
point and not with a brush, and there must 
be primarily point expression, that is line ex- 
pression, or none. 

Otto H. Bacher has written a few analytical 
notes of Whistler’s line work. “ Where it re- 
quired accuracy he was minute. He used his 
needle with the ease of a draughtsman with a 
pen. He grouped his lines in an easy, playful 
way that was fascinating. They would often 

- group themselves as tones, a difficult thing to 
get in an etching. He used line and dot in all 
its phases with certainty. Sometimes the lines 
formed a dark shadow of a passage through a 
house, with figures in the darkness so beauti- 
fully drawn that they looked far away from 
the spectator. These shadows which so beau- 
tifully defined darkness were made only by 
many lines carefully welded together and made 
'vague as the shadows became faint in the dis- 
tance or contrasted with some light object. 
He made his etched lines feel like air against 
solids. . . . If he etched a doorway, he played 


156 The Whistler Book 


with the lines and allowed them to jumble 
themselves into beautiful forms and contrasts, 
but was always very careful of the general 
direction they should run as a whole.”” Bacher 
saw a good deal of Whistler in Venice, per- 
haps more so than any one else, and his obser- 
vations on Whistler’s etching tools, how he 
ground and bit his plates, are extremely inter- 
esting. “In grounding plates Whistler used 
the old-fashioned ground, composed of white 
wax, bitumen, pitch and rosin. He heated the 
plates with an ordinary alcohol flame, holding 
the plate in a small hand vise. The silk cov- 
ered dabber that spread the ground over the 
plate was fascinatingly managed by Whis- 
tler... . . When he came to smoking the plate 
he preferred the old wax taper made for that 
purpose. He kept his two etching needles, 
very sharp ordinary dentist tools, in cork, to 
preserve their fine points. Whistler always 
had his stopping-out varnish with him in a 
small bottle, applying it with a brush in a most 
delicate manner. He did not make use of any 
mirror but preferred the old negative process.. 
When he bit a plate he put it on the corner 
of a kitchen table, with his retouching varnish, 
etching needle, feather and bottle of nitric 
acid, at hand, ready for instant use. Taking 
a feather, he would place it at the mouth of the 


In Quest of Line Expression 157 


bottle of acid, tipping bottle and allowing acid 
to run down the feather and drip on plate. 
He moved bottle and feather always in the 
same position around the edges until plate was 
covered, — would use feather continually to 
wash acid backward and forward upon the 
plate, keeping parts equally covered, and blow- 
ing away air bubbles.” 

Frequently Whistler sketched directly on 
copper plates. He carried the prepared plates 
in his pockets or in a book and when he 
found a motif sketched it in zmprovisatore 
fashion. His sketches of the “ Annual Re- 
view at Spithead,” in 1887, show his uncom- 
mon facility as a sketch artist. He was the 
champion of dry point. Already during the 
Leyland period he selected dry point as a 
favourite medium. And in this, to my notion, 
lies the strength of Whistler as an etcher. 
“Whistler added,” as Joseph Pennell has so 
beautifully said, “a new scientific method to 
the art of etching — that of painting on the 
copper plate with the needle.” 

As a printer of his own plates he seems to 
have been quite an expert. He, no doubt, al- 
lowed himself great latitude and experimented 
with each plate, so that few impressions resem- 
ble each other. Although he had abolished 
blacks and dark tonal passages at an early 


158 The Whistler Book 


date, he frequently painted on the plate with 
printer’s ink, and went through an elaborate 
process of wiping. Of course this makes the 
excellence of the impression uneven, but also 
makes a particularly good one a more valu- 
able possession. 

The intention was always the same. From 
the very start he sought for the same arrange- 
ment of lines and spaces, the same effect as in 
his Venetian plates. He wanted breadth — 
not breadth of line itself, but breadth of ex- 
pression. After all it was a growth and slow 
development. He became simpler and sim- 
pler, and well nigh reached perfection in his 
Parisian series of 1892-93, of little shops, bou- 
levard scenes, and public gardens, and in 
prints like “ The Little Mast,” “'The Riva,” 
“The Barber,” and “ Zaandam”’ he acquired 
his wonderful sense for right workmanship 
on a small scale. Some of his etchings of - 
fragments of architecture have never been sur- 
passed in sketchy treatment; most notice- 
able perhaps in the exaggerated simplicity of 
the “ London Bridge” and in the Holland 
series of the nineties. There we realize that 
great simplicity of motif is dependent on great 
simplicity of genius. The effects are so spon- 
taneous and subdued that their value might 
well escape common observation. The extreme 


In Quest of Line Expression 159 





sensibility is a matter of both touch and vision. 
His plates look as if the rapidity of execution 
had been extraordinary, and yet his line, as 
delicate at times as in silver point drawings, 
is not exactly what we could call nervous, but 
of remarkable freedom and unerring precision. 
It is piquant and sprightly, subtle and alert. 

The lines can almost be counted in some of 
his later etchings. He had learned the truth 
of the proverb “ Wise economy is everything.” 
It was even more than wise economy. It was 
the highest expression of artistic wisdom, 
which had almost disappeared since the sur- 
face decorations of Greek vases, in which 
mood, character and incident were reduced to 
a few details, strong enough to incite in the 
imagination of the beholder all that was elim- 
inated. 

Every art is at its best when it is most itself. 
Nobody realized this more than Whistler, who 
invariably emphasized this. He had an abso- 
lutely clear idea of what every medium could 
do. In his larger paintings it was the exploi- 
tation of a few dull colours, of a silhouette in 
space combined with psychological research; in 
his nocturnes, a play of slightly differentiated 
tones; in his water-colours a mere suggestion . 
of reality; and in his pastels a certain joyous- 
ness of expression. Pure line, caprice of detail, 


160 The Whistler Book 


distance and atmosphere, he reserved for his 
etchings; and a subtle expression of values of 
‘““moss-like gradations” for his lithographs. 
His decision may not always appear right to 
others, but it was right to him. How carefully 
he thought out these technical problems is 
shown in his “ Propositions,’ which he ad- 
dressed to an American etching club that had 
invited him to take part in a competition of 
large plates. He wrote the following series 
of maxims that should be posted on the wall 
of every studio: 

“That art is criminal to go beyond the 
means used in its exercise.” 

“That the space to be covered should al- 
ways be in proper relation to the means used 
for covering it.” 

“ That in etching, the means used, or instru- 
ments employed, being the finest possible 
point, the space to be covered should be small 
in proportion.” 

“That all attempts to overstep the limits 
insisted upon such proportions are inartistic 
thoroughly, and tend to reveal the paucity of 
the means used, instead of concealing the same, 
as required by art in its refinement.” 

“That the huge plate, therefore, is an of- 
fence —its undertaking an unbecoming dis- 
play of determination and ignorance — in ac- 





WAPPING, ON THE THAMES (ETCHING). 


AN 








In Quest of Line Expression 161 


complishment a triumph of unthinking ear- 
nestness and uncontrolled energy — both en- 
dowments of the ‘ duffer.’ ” : 

“That the custom of “ Remarque ’ emanates 
from the amateur and reflects his foolish facil- 
ity beyond the border of his picture, thus testi- 
fying to his unscientific sense of its dignity.” 

“ That it is odious.” 

“That, indeed, there should be no margin 
on the proof to receive such ‘ Remarque.’ ” 

“ That the habit of the margin, again, dates 
from the outsider, and continues with the col- 
lector in his unreasoning connoisseurship — 
taking curious pleasure in the quantity of the 
paper.” | 

“That the picture ending where the frame 
begins, and in the case of etchings, the white 
mount, being inevitably, because of its colour, 
the frame, the picture thus extends itself irrel- 
evantly through the margin of the mount.” 

“ That wit of this kind would leave six inches 
of raw canvas between the painting and its 
gold frame, to delight the purchaser with the 
quality of the cloth.” 

We may not agree with his conclusion on 
the margin and remarque. The latter, no 
doubt, was introduced by the artist to please 
the purchaser. It is therefore, if a fault at all, 
that_of the artist as much as of the collector. 


162 The Whistler Book 


The question of margin is an individual one. 
There is little difference between a mat and 
a margin, and the Japanese print and the 
framing of black and whites in general have 
taught us the utility of uneven spacing around 
the picture. The remainder of the argument is 
excellent, theoretically as well as zsthetically. 

Whistler’s composition, excepting the 
French set, was strictly impressionistic. One 
merely has to look at the “ Cadogan Pier,” 
“The Little Pool,’ “Old Hungerford 
Bridge,” “Little Wapping,” “The Velvet 
Dress,” “ The Dam Wood,” “ The Long La- 
goon,” etc., to come to this conclusion. 

The word impressionism is rather difficult 
to explain. It is on the tongue of everybody, 
and yet few mean exactly the same thing when 
they make use of it. The term applied for- 
merly to every art expression — as every artist 
endeavoured to render an impression — has 
been specialized in the latter half of the last 
century. It has become the nickname of a 
definite number of painters, who have adopted 
a new palette (as suggested by scientific re- 
searches) and introduced a new method of lay- 
ing colours on the canvas. In recent years the 
term has undergone another change — it has 
become a general claim for individuality of 
subject and treatment. 


‘(ONIHOLG) ADGIUe GUOMUAONOH ATO 





In Quest of Line Expression 163 


First of all, let us determine what difference ~ 
there really is between the old and the new 
style of impressionism. The artist of the old 
school received an impression and elaborated 
upon it. He embellished it with all his art 
was capable of, and the original impression 
underwent all sorts of changes. It was merely 
the first inspiration — the foundation stone 
‘upon which the whole art structure was erected. 
The artist of the new school, on the other hand, 
endeavours to reproduce the impression he has 
received, unchanged. He wants the impres- 
sion itself, and wants to see it on his canvas as 
he has seen and felt it, hoping that his inter- 
pretation may call forth similar esthetic pleas- 
ures in others as the original impression did in 
him. It is a singular coincidence, indeed, that 
while the men of the lens busy themselves with 
imitating the art of several centuries ago, those 
of the brush are seeking but for the accuracy 
of the camera plus technical individuality. 

‘The impressionist painters adhere to a style 
of composition that apparently ignores all pre- 
vious laws. They depict life in scraps and 
pigments, as it appears haphazard in the finder 
or on the ground glass of the camera. The 
mechanism of the camera is essentially the one 
medium which renders every interpretation 
impressionistic, and every photographic print, 


164 The Whistler Book 


whether sharp or blurred, is really an impres- 
sion. 

How did the impressionistic painters arrive 
at this new style of composition? Permit me 
two questions. When was impressionism in- 
troduced into painting? In the sixties. When 
did photography come into practice? In the 
early forties. Do you see what I am driving 
at? Photography in the sixties was still a ° 
comparative novelty, and consequently excited 
the interest of pictorial reformers more than 
it does to-day. Its influence must have been 
very strongly felt, and the more I have 
thought of the nature of this influence the 
stronger has become the conviction in me that 
the impressionistic style of composition is 
largely of photographic origin. 

Impressionistic composition is unthinkable 
without the application of focus. The lens of 
the camera taught the painter the importance 
of a single object in space to realize that all 
subjects cannot be seen with equal clearness, 
and that it is necessary to concentrate the point 
of interest according to the visual abilities of 
the eye. There is no lens, as everybody knows, 
which renders foreground and middle distance 
equally well. If three objects, for instance, 
a house, a tree and a pool of water, stand at 
different depths before the camera, the photog- 








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In Quest of Line Expression 165 





rapher can, at will, fix either the house, the 
tree or the pool of water, but whatever one of 
these three objects it will be, the other two 
objects will appear less distinct. 

The human eye could have told the painter 
the same story, as the eye naturally and in- 
stinctively rests on the most pleasing part of 
the scene, and in so doing, puts out of focus 
more or less all the other parts. It is a curious 
fact that all the compositions of the Old Mas- 
ters were out of focus. True enough they 
swept minor light and colour notations into 
larger ones, but there seldom was any definite 
indication in their work whether an object was 
in the foreground or middle distance. ‘This 
way of seeing things was, no doubt, a volun- 
tary one — they had a different idea of pic- 
torial interpretation. In their pictures, as in 
nature, we continually allow our attention to 
flit from one point to the other in the endeav- 
our to grasp the whole, and the result is a series 
of minor impressions, which consciously influ- 
ence the final and total impression we receive 
from a picture. The impressionist is satisfied 
with giving one full impression that stands by 
itself, and it was the broadcast appearance of 
the photographic images in the sixties that 
taught him to see and represent life in focal 
planes and divisions. 


166 The. Whistler Book 


In the catalogue of Whistler’s etchings, ar- 
ranged by Frederick Wedmore in 1886, we 
find 214 prints enumerated and commented 
upon. In a later edition the number had in- 
creased to 268. In the Catalogue of etchings 
of James McNeill Whistler, compiled by an 
amateur and published by Wunderlich in New 
York, 1902, and which claims to contain all 
known etchings by the artist, the number is 
372. 

But as Whistler was working on copper all 
his life, it is difficult to state how many etch- 
ings he really made. Joseph Pennell, who 
probably knows more about this phase of art 
than any living man, makes a statement as 
follows: | 

“I know little, and can say less, of the state 
of his plates, —and I believe himself knew 
little more about them,—how many were 
printed, whether they exist or not, or what has 
become of the coppers. All I do know is that 
in the case of the Thames set, long after Whis- 
tler or Delatre — I am not sure which — had 
pulled a certain number of proofs, long after 
the plates had been steeled and regularly pub- 
lished, about 1871, and later still, after a Bond 
Street dealer had been selling them in endless 
numbers to artists for a few shillings each, the 
idea was suggested to another dealer that he 


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In Quest of Line Expression 167 


should purchase the copper plates, remove the 
lead facings and, if they were in condition, 
print as many as the plates would stand, or, 
if they were not, destroy the plates and sell 
them; for even Whistler’s destroyed copper 
plates have a value. The experiment was 
tried, and extraordinarily fine proofs were ob- 
tained. I believe collectors resented this very 
much, but artists rejoiced, and the world is 
richer by a number of splendid examples of 
the master.” 

Whistler gave etching a new impetus, and 
a new significance in the use of line; even as 
Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer has so well ex- 
pressed it: “in telling use of a line he has no 
superior among the modern and few equals in 
any age.” 

His work is never dull, nor cold, nor com- 
monplace. It is always fascinating and capa- 
ble of provoking esthetic sentiments. At 
times it is of “slight constitution,” a mere 
passing fancy, leaving many objects in the 
stage of mere suggestion, but it always has a 
finished look. And finish, as he understood it, 
meant the carrying on of a technical process 
until it had fulfilled to the utmost its mission 
and explanation, until not a touch more was 
needed to make clear the intention which the 
picture embodied. 


CHAPTER IX 
MOSS-LIKE GRADATIONS 


GREY is the colour of modern life. There 
is some truth in the statement. Modern ciy- 
ilization shuns the slashed doublet and purple 
cloak. Beauty of colour, as a Titian and Vero- 
nese understood it, belongs to the past. ‘The 
brilliancy and splendour has faded out of it. 
The modern painter uses a more limited scale 
of colour, and the tendency is toward grey. 

Man’s garb is monotone, and the life in 
large cities devoid of the rich colour-bursts of 
medieval life. ‘The contrasts are all in lower, 
paler and murkier tones, and grey, in most 
instances, furnishes the keynote and general 
harmonizer. All the artists who have a fine 
feeling for the arrangement of colours have 
realized that harmonies of red, green and vio- 
let, which shone so resplendently from the 
warm brown tones of the Old Masters, are the 
dreams of another age. Even the impression- 
ists, by the very character of their technical 
innovations, notably the abolition of browns, 

168 


Moss-like Gradations 169 


the struggle for a higher pitch of light by the 
interaction of purely applied colours and the 
exaggeration of the transparency of shadows, 
are pursuing the grey phantom of modern art. 
Their ambition is no longer a combination of 
bright colours, as in Veronese’s “ Marriage of 
Cana,” but a tonality of dull yellow or green, 
which pervades the whole surface of the pic- 
tures. ‘The flowing robes, flowers and gold 
ornaments, once so radiant on the canvases of 
the Renaissance, have turned as pale as ashes. 

We take delight to-day in subtler grada- 
tions, in semi and quarter tones, the losing of 
forms in mystic shadows, a restless, suggestive 
technique of mobile touches, nervous sparkles, 
of delicate broken tints that show a hundred 
differentiations. And this over-sensitiveness 
and fastidious objection to strong contrast, 
this love for the externals of technique, raising 
brushwork to a higher pedestal than the idea, 
has much to do with the exclusiveness of mod- 
ern painting and the keener appreciation for 
monochrome. 

In monochrome representation the eye has 
to deal only with one mode of perception — 
that of form. The perception of colour de- 
pends upon the differentiation of the effect 
upon the optical nerve fibres, that of form on 
the numbers and relative position of the latter. 


170 The Whistler Book 


The latter mode of esthetic perception is, in 
our times, more trained and developed, as it is 
in constant usage. Reproductive processes, 
the halftone and photography, have made 
monochrome a vehicle of expression almost as 
popular as the spoken word. 

To former ages only the various processes 
of engraving were known. With the excep- 
tion of etching and wood engraving, they were 
applied largely to popularize the products of 
painters, and the independent etchers and 
block-cutters’ generally adhered to a severe 
and classical style of art. It was the nine- 
teenth century with its principle of universal 
education, newspapers, books and manifold 
publications, that brought about the great 
change. 

Texture constitutes to most collectors the 
principal charm of the graphic arts. It is a 
rare and fantastic valuation, an appreciation 
of preciosity, this occupying oneself with the 
fascination of the minor arts. Art would be 
too austere if it were not for the makers of 
etchings and lithographs, of pastels and water- 
colours. 

Photography, the latest arrival in the ranks © 
of the graphic arts, has the widest range of 
expression, and its technique is interesting as 
far as it can express mechanically and with 


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Moss-like Gradations 171 





comparative ease gradations of tone that with- 
out visible touches, marks, strokes or lines 
melt imperceptibly into each other. But this 
smoothness of texture will also be its most 
formidable drawback. There is no chance for 
manual expression without destroying the 
charm of photographic texture. Chemistry is 
the only legitimate means to accomplish it. 

Copper and steel engravings lack that free- 
dom of expression, and are restricted largely 
to reproductive purposes. Carried out by 
cross-hatching, they are limited by the black 
of the ink and the white of the paper, and the 
precise character of the line work. Modern 
reproductive wood engraving, notably of the 
American school, is the only medium which 
has conquered the subtleties of tone. 

The scale in monochrome painting in colour 
is so limited that few artists apply it. India 
ink and sepia, however, are much in favour, 
and if handled by an artist, fulfil the require- 
ments of painting. The only short-comings 
are a certain transparency in the middle tints 
and an artificial look in the texture. 

Charcoal and chalk have a great similarity, 
and also lend themselves to elaborate compo- 
sition, although the more delicate and lighter 
greys are frequently muddy. Pen and ink 
can merely give an impression of line, and 


172 The Whistler Book 


next to etching it is the best medium for sketch- 
ing, only a less pliable one, which is largely 
due to the unelasticity of the steel pen; all 
subtler gradations are left out, as the brightest 
tints are lost in the white and the darkest in 
the black. 

In lead pencil sketches the lowest tones are 
grey as compared with black, and consequently 
can not produce any decided depth. Crayon 
lithography is capable of producing beautiful 
soft greys. As the gradations from one tint to. 
another are not continuous, the texture, con- 
sisting of innumerable minute dots, does not 
permit clear uninterrupted line work and even 
flow of tone. It does not lend itself particu- 
larly well to faithful copying from nature. 
The very character of its granulated line and 
surface suggests a sketchy and fragmentary 
treatment. Whistler, who, with Fantin-La- 
tour, shares the honour of the happy revival 
of artistic lithography, readily realized this. 
He laid special stress upon the texture; its 
detached shapes creep over the paper like grey 
moss over a stone, They are all carried out 
in grey monotonous middle tints but marvel- 
lously delicate and subtle in values. Super- 
ficial but delicious in quality, his lithographic 
croquis impress us like the laborious trifles 
and harmonious bagatelles of a Herrick. 


Moss-like Gradations 173 


Theodore Duret tells us that Whistler 
made his first series of six lithographs during 
the years 1877-78 (republished in 1887 by 
Boussod Valadon in Paris). They were drawn 
directly on stone, contrary to his later method, 
when he used transfer paper almost exclu- 
sively. ‘They were rather large in size, and 
resembled his painted nocturnes in general 
treatment. This is particularly the case with 
his “ View on the Thames,” the most beautiful 
print of the series. I do not believe that these 
representations were of particular importance, 
as they contradict his own theory. What can 
be and has been perfectly expressed in one 
medium, can not reach equal perfection in an- 
other medium. It was really nothing but a 
translation of a painted nocturne into black 
and white. ‘The essential charm of a Whistler 
nocturne consists of colour. Black and white 
can convey only a vague idea of vibrancy. 

When Whistler took up lithographing for 
the second time in 1885-86, he had become 
thoroughly familiar with his medium. He no 
longer worked on the stone, and abandoned 
all elaborate finished compositions. His 
motifs are sketchy little figure studies, street 
scenes, portraits and occasionally a nude or 
semi-nude like his “Dancing Girl” in flut- 
tering drapery. The printing he entrusted 


174 The Whistler Book 





to a lithograph printer in London, Thomas 
Way by name, who was somewhat of an 
artist himself and consequently _ better 
equipped than the ordinary pressman to do 
justice to Whistler’s vague fancies. Fre- 
quently Whistler took a hand in the printing, 
or at least made corrections. Printer Way 
told Mr. Wedmore, with reference to the 
sometimes disputed matter of the transfer 
paper, “ that even when the artist drew on that 
in the first instance, and saw in proofs things 
that were lacking or things that were exag- 
gerated, he would make his correction upon the 
stone itself, and so, of certain of his litho- 
graphs — his later ones especially — he pro- 
duced different “ states,’ though it was not easy 
to expressly define them, and though these dif- 
ferences were, of course, but the exceptions, 
and whereas very often, though of course not 
always in etchings— Whistler’s or other 
peoples’ — the earlier state is finer than the 
later; in these lithographs, generally speak- 
ing, the later state is finer than the earlier.” 

Whistler’s lithographs can easily be clas- 
sified according to the subjects they represent. — 
During the years Whistler lived in Paris he 
depicted views and scenes of the city like the 
“Pantheon,” “The Grand Gallery of the 
Louvre,” “'The Luxembourg Gardens” and 











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LITTLE ROSE OF LYME REGIS. 





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‘Moss-like Gradations 175 


interesting types like “La belle New York- 
aise’ and “ La belle Dame Paresseuse.” One 
print, “ Les Confidences dans le Jardin,” de- 
picts two gossiping women in the garden of 
his house in the rue du Bac. 

His Londen subjects are equally numerous. 
In 1895, when he painted “The Master 
Smith ” and the “ Little Rose of Lyme Regis,” 
while at a watering place in Dorsetshire he 
made several sketches of the picturesque 
streets of the old town. Of particular charm 
are his “ Early Morning” (a view of the 
Thames from his Chelsea window) and “ The 
Locksmith of the Dragon Square.” In 1886, 
during an illness of his wife, he lived in the 
Surrey Hotel and executed a number of pano- 
ramic views of the Strand, the Thames with 
its river traffic, the quays, St. Paul’s Cathe- 
dral and bird-eye views of London streets. 

All these designs are beautifully enveloped 
in a misty atmosphere. The paper is used as 
a value as important as the grey lines of the 
crayon, and the forms are softened as if broken 
by light and generally massed in an unsym- 
metrical fashion. 

Some of the portrait sketches are superb, 
in particular that of Stéphane Mallarmé, who 
was Whistler’s life-long friend and one of 
his staunchest supporters. It was largely due 


176 The Whistler Book 


to Mallarmé that the “ Portrait of the Ar- 
tist’s Mother ” found a home in the Luxem- 
bourg. He also translated the “ Ten O'clock ” 
into French. Whistler’s sketch of the poet 
appeared on the front of the Parisian edition 
of “ Vers et Prose” (1893). It is apparently 
hurriedly dashed off, but the result of many 
careful studies and experiments. It is a mere 
fragment, negligent, disdainful; but how 
knowingly made, and how characteristic of 
the poet’s personality! Despite its vagueness 
it is a likeness, and preferable, to me at least, 
who was fortunate to know Mallarmé in the 
early eighties, to most portraits made of him. 

Whistler never surpassed this particular 
effort, although his portraits of Joseph Pen- 
nell, Mrs. Pennell, Walter Sickert, W. E. 
Henley and his wife, Miss Philip and Comte 
Montesquieu are excellent character studies. 
Way published in 1896 a catalogue of 130 
lithographs. Later additions probably in- 
crease the number to 150. The London Fine 
Arts Society held in 1895 a special sale of 
75 lithographs. The “ Grolier Club” of New 
York in 1900 held an exhibition of 106 prints. 

His nudes are charming little inventions in 
pose and gesture with considerable knowledge 
of the human figure. In the Society exhibi- 
tion of 1885 he exhibited a nude entitled 





STUDY OF NUDE FIGURE (CHALK DRAWING). 





Moss-like Gradations iter 


“ Caprice.” A R. A. Horsley took exception 
to it, and in a lecture before a Church Con- 
gress, after indulging in most curious, pedan- 
tic and medizval arguments, ended with the 
following tirade: 

“Ts not clothedness a distinct type and fea- 
ture of our Christian faith? All art repre- 
sentations of nakedness are out of harmony 
with it.” 

Whistler, ever ready to take up the cudgel, 
avenged himself by writing under the picture: 
“ Horsley soit qui mal y pense,” and leaving 
it there during the entire exhibition. 

Strange, that Whistler never attempted to 
paint a large nude in oil. He, no doubt, had 
a reason for this omission, although it is 
nowhere recorded. Perhaps he agreed on the 
point with Ruskin that a realistic nude had no 
place in modern life, not for any moral reason 
but merely that the human body was too de- 
fective to allow the highest esthetic gratifica- 
tion. A figure in modern garb is a part of 
modern life, a nude is an alien in space with- 
out any special significance. This should have 
appealed to Whistler; perhaps he strove hard 
to realize it but never succeeded in doing so. 
His lithographs and pastels of nudes seem 
largely experimental. They never go beyond 
the sketch and vaguely remind one of T'ana- 


178 The Whistler Book 


gra figures. “The Model Resting,” and 
“'The Little Nude Reading,” a profile view of 
a young girl sitting in bed holding with both 
hands a book, are two of the best known. 

Whistler also made a few attempts in col- 
oured lithography, as for instance, “ La Mai- 
son Jaune.” But it is hardly coloured lithog- 
raphy, it is merely a black and white design 
with a few touches of colour, as expressed in 
** A Lannion ” or the “ Maison Rouge a Paim- 
pol,” the result of an excursion to Brittany. 
Perhaps the most exquisite and delicate of his 
efforts are these slight delicate renderings of 
female forms. When he adds a little colour 
it is always done with rare preciosity, the 
“un-finish” always being masterly. And 
there is such a thing as masterly “ un-finish ” 
always being just at the right spot as there is 
merit in the masterly inactivity of a Russian 
general opposing an invading army. The 
very essence of Whistler’s art is to be seen in 
these coloured drawings. 

Of peculiar charm are Whistler’s pastels. 
The majority, some fifty which he exhibited in 
the London Fine Arts Society in 1880, depict 
Venetian scenes. ‘They were catalogued as 
“harmonies in blue and browns, in opal and 
turquoise, ete.” They show a rare elegance of 
design and a peculiar suavity of colour. They, 





Owned by Th. R. Way 


PASTEL STUDY. 





Moss-like Gradations 179 


are the last remnants of his early period of 
vivid colouring, and are highly valued. They 
represent canals with draped gondolas, views 
from the lagoons with ships at anchor, arch- 
ways, and white churches, the cemetery with 
green trees, lights gleaming on the distant 
shore and reflections in the water. His figures 
in pastels are mostly young girls, semi-nude 
or in quaintly coloured robes, frequently in 
pink and red against vague backgrounds. 
Whistler’s virtuosity in these sketches and pic- 
torial fragments is entirely different from the 
so-called impressionist’s work. It is primarily 
full of imagination, of a high mental tone and 
dignity. Whistler has shown how noble an 
aspect can be given to the expression of an 
extremist, for he also was an extremist. He 
perfectly realized that aggressive sketchiness 
can never be monumental, that sketches are 
merely gymnastic exercises that lend health 
and strength to a painter’s technique, although 
they remain to the end merely exercises. At 
the same time, if rightly handled, they express 
certain «esthetic aspects of life better than more 
elaborate efforts. He knew what a sketch 
could and could not convey, and the wonderful 
freshness and spontaneity which they exhibit 
are witness alike to the clear crispness of his 
perception and to his sympathetic handling. 


180 The Whistler Book 


The only medium in which Whistler ex- 
pressed himself without adding a decided note 
to individuality of execution, are his water 
colours. They have an easy flow, but the areas 
of surface seem too large for the slight treat- 
ment. The meaning of the motifs seems to 
be dissipated. 'They represent mostly street 
scenes, country views, the seashore and 
marines, charmingly translucent, but without 
suggesting a style, that developed the medium 
according to its resources. But whatever 
Whistler did was interesting. It is difficult 
to imagine a more delightful pastime than to 
look over a collection of his pastels, lithographs 
and aquarelles. They are carried out lightly, 
but with true touches of genius and joyous 
mystifying excursions into the dreamland of 
pictorial fancy, quite in the Whistlerian man- 
ner. No one, I think, quite so well fulfilled 
Whistler’s own theory that an artist should 
see nature through the spiritual eye of an in- 
dividual. Few painters were such frank inter- 
preters of their own intimate moods. 

Aside of all these works on record Whistler 
has scattered through the world countless 
scraps of drawings, themselves amply sufficient 
to make an artist’s reputation. What a 
precious document we should have if their 
author were able to-day to give a list, as cer- 


Moss-like Gradations 181 


tain artists have done, a kind of Laber veri- 
tatis of all the studies he has made and dis- 
seminated! But he has flung them far and 
wide, as the plum tree scatters its blossoms in 
approaching spring. 


CHAPTER X 
WHISTLER’S ICONOCLASM 


. Iv would be difficult to find in the whole 
history of art writing another case of a 
pamphleteer who became as famous with a 
few manuscripts as Whistler. Both the 
“ Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” edited by 
Sheridan Ford, and published in 1890 by 
William Heineman, London; Frederick 
Stokes & Co., New York; and Delabrosse & 
Co., all in the same year, and “The Ten 
O’clock,” delivered in London, February, 
1885; in Cambridge, March 24th; and Ox- 
ford, April 30th of the following year, and 
published in 1888, created a sensation. They 
scarcely embrace five thousand words of read- 
ing matter. 

Whistler’s diction was exceedingly terse and 
poignant and he managed to say, or at least 
to suggest to intelligent minds, in a few words 
a phrase or maxim, which would exact from 
more sluggish pens page after page of argu- 
ment. Of course, his letters and replies to 

182 





ield 
ARCHWAY, VENICE (PASTEL). 


Owned by Howard Mansf 





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‘ 
; 
+ 
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Whistler’s Iconoclasm 183 





critics were written largely for effect. A well 
turned phrase was to him the ideal of diction 
and no doubt he rewrote every sentence a dozen 
times before he allowed it to go out to the 
public. It was to him a part— and a most 
serious part — of his profession. And when- 
ever he did not deal with personalities and 
approached the technical principle on which his 
practice as artist was based, as in his “ propo- 
sitions,’ his observations and theories became 
lucid and convincing. Read his reply to the 
criticism which was caused by the withdrawal 
of two members from the Society of the 
[British Artists, who left voluntarily knowing 
that changes of policy were inevitable under 
the presidency of Whistler. The attack in the 
London Daily News ended as follows: 


“Tt will be for the patrons of the Suffolk- 
street Gallery to decide whether the more than 
half-uncovered walls which will be offered to 
their view next week are more interesting than 
the work of many artists of more than average 
merit which will be conspicuous by its absence, 
owing to the selfish policy inaugurated. 

(Signed) A BririsH ARTIST.” 


Whistler answered: 
“Far from me to propose to penetrate the 


184 The Whistler Book 


motives of such withdrawal, but what I do 


deny was that it could possibly be caused — as 
its strangely late announcement seemed 
sweetly to insinuate —by the strong deter- 
mination to tolerate no longer the mediocre 


work that had hitherto habitually swarmed the 


walls of the Suffolk-street. 

“This is a plain question of date, and I 
pointed out that these two gentlemen left the 
Society six months ago—long before the 
supervising committee were called upon to act 
at all, or make any demonstration whatever. 
Your correspondent regrets that I do not * go 
further,’ and straightway goes further him- 
self, and scarcely fares better, when, with a 


quaintness of naivete rare at this moment, he . 


proposes that ‘it will be for the patrons of the 
gallery to decide whether the more than half- 
covered walls are more interesting than the 
works of many artists of more than the average 
merit.’ Now it will be for the patrons to de- 
cide absolutely nothing. It is, and will al- 
ways be, for the gentlemen of the hanging 
committee alone, duly chosen, to decide 
_ whether empty space be preferable to poor 
pictures — whether, in short, it be their duty to 
cover walls, merely that walls may be cov- 
ered — no matter with what quality of work. 

“Indeed the period of the patron has utterly 


a 


—- 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 185 


passed away, and the painter takes his place — 
to point out what he knows to be consistent 
with the demands of his art — without defer- 
ence to patrons or prejudice to party. Be- 
yond this, whether the ‘ policy of Mr. Whistler 
and his following’ be ‘ selfish or no,’ matters 
but little; but if the policy of your corre- 
spondent’s ‘following’ find itself among the 
ruthlessly rejected, his letter is more readily 
explained.” 


This is some logic and delicious sarcasm. 
It is to the point and there is nothing unpleas- 
ant in the entire argument. His art challenges 
and explanations always impress us in that 
manner. 

That is why his art lecture, if it may be 
passed as such — it is exceedingly short as art 
lectures go —is so much more valuable as a 
literary document than his collected letters, 
though the latter are more amusing, and give 
perhaps a better insight into the author’s per- 
sonality. It is a concise réswmé of modern art, 
not only the exploitation of one man’s ideas, 
but rather a set of theories which reflect the 
thoughts of most of the younger and modern 
painters. It is written in a subjective way but 
the impression derived therefrom is objective. 
Whistler was one of the few great representa- 


186 The Whistler Book 








tives of modern art, and if such a man has the 
gift to express his idea in a clear manner, a 
gift which most painters lack, he will neces- 
sarily reflect the aspirations of his contempo- 
raries. As a piece of literature aside from the 
idea conveyed in it, I would compare it to 
Fromentin’s “ Le Desert,” a charming treatise 
on colour and atmosphere, but as soon as it 
treats the more serious problems of art it be- 
comes of deeper significance, and I, for my 
part, would not hesitate to mention it in the 
same breath with Lessing’s “ Laakoon.” It 
has neither the dignity nor logical sequence of 
the Hamburgh philosopher, but the statements 
in it are more important, or at least, more sig- 
nificant to us than any theories of the German 
critic. I do not know of any book which is 
more reflective of modern art than Whistler’s 
“Ten O’Clock.” It filled a big gap, and its 
influence on the reasoning power (which, true 
enough, is small in many instances) of the 
modern painter has been far-reaching. 
Whistler’s literary activity began about 
1863, when he lived in Linsey Row, London. 
His pictures had been rejected from several 
leading London and Paris exhibitions, and, 
finally, when he succeeded in exhibiting his 
“Woman in White” at the Berner Street 
Galleries, during the spring months of 1862 





Owned by Howard Mansfield 
THE JAPANESE DRESS (PASTEL). 





Whistler’s Iconoclasm 187 


(before sending it to Paris), it called forth a 
storm of derision and ridicule. His answer to 
a most silly criticism in the “ Athenzum,” that 
the face of his ““ Woman in White” was well 
done, but that it was not that of Mr. Wilkie 
Collins’ heroine was his first attempt at repu- 
diation. It was as follows: 


“May I beg to correct an erroneous im- 
pression likely to be confirmed by a paragraph 
in your last number? ‘The Berner Street Gal- 
leries have, without my sanction, called my 
picture the ‘Woman in White.’ I had no> 
intentions whatsoever of illustrating Mr. 
Wilkie Collins’ novel; it so happens, indeed, 
that I have never read it. My painting simply 
represents a girl in white standing in front of 
a white curtain. I am, 

JAMES WHISTLER.” 


The reply, in my mind, is rather common- 
place. It has, as yet, nothing of Whistler’s 
fine sarcasm and finished style. Almost any- 
body could have written it. The attitude of 
a critic to accept something as a starting point, 
and then to criticize a picture from that point, 
is such a commonplace occurrence that it was 
hardly worth answering. 

Also his second literary attempt, more than 


188 The Whistler Book 





ten years later, when he objected to having 
one of his pictures called “’'The Yacht Race: 
A symphony in B sharp,” had little merit 
except that of indignation. 3 

Whistler was an iconoclast, as fanatic as 
any, when problems of art were in question, 
but his image-breaking was always indirect, 
“inverted ” as it were; he defended his position 
by asserting his own beliefs. He, no doubt, 
was prompted by his own deep-rooted convic- 
tions, but the stimulant of his literary activity 
was never based on didacticism: to bring’ out 
an idea because it was a great truth and ought 
to be brought out. The stimulant for his ut- 
terances was always personal anger, irritation — 
and wrath. He fought for himself and his 
art, but not for others. He was one of the 
greatest egotists that ever lived. Whenever 
he felt hurt at some injustice and stupidity he 
had to set it aright, no matter at what cost, 
to his own satisfaction. 

It was not before he was forty-four that he 
took up letter writing seriously. In one of his 
earliest answers he is seen at his best; it was 
written as early as 1867 but never published 
until 1887, when it appeared in the “ Art Jour- 
nal.” Somebody had found fault with him 
calling one of his pictures “ A Symphony in 
White,” because one of the girls had reddish 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 189 


hair; and a yellow dress, a blue ribbon and a 
blue fan had been introduced into a white 
tonality. He replied in his vigorous fashion: 


“Can anything be more amazing than the 
stultified prattle of this poor person? Not 
precisely a symphony in white . . . for there 
is a yellowish dress . . . brown hair... and 
of course there is the flesh colour of the com- 
plexions. Bon Dieu! Did this creature ex- 
pect white hair and chalked faces? And does 
he then in his astounding wisdom believe that 
a symphony in F contains no other note, but a 
continued repetition of F, F, F, F, F?... 
Fool! JAMES WHISTLER.” 


In this letter he took the right attitude, that 
of the fighter, who, with a few penstrokes, 
annihilated the foolishness of his opponents. 
If all his feuds had been of this character, 
no objection would have been raised to them. 
Alas, he did things, frequently, merely to pose 
as a wit, to say something that would make © 
London society laugh, caring little in how 
malicious and vituperative a manner he would 
couch his words. Even when he was wrong 
and knew that he was wrong he would fight, 
as in the Café Orientale incident. A corre- 
spondent of the “ World ” attacked the title, 


190 The Whistler Book 





stating that it had an e too many for French, 
and an f too few for Italian. “Whistler does 
not attempt to justify his orthographical error, 
but, by telling an anecdote, endeavours to ridi- 
cule all criticism which pretends to such ac- 
curacy. It is cleverly told, but after all it is 
silly. 

Nearly all his friends, sooner or later, were 
forced into crossing swords with him. The list 
is a long one and embraces many well-known 
names. He fought with his brother-in-law, 
FE’. Seymour Haden, because he had admired 
Frank Duveneck’s etchings and mistaken them 
for Whistler’s. He advised Harry Quilter, an 
art writer, “ his bitterest enemy,” to employ his 
sense of smell in preference to his eyesight; he 
calls the art critic P. G. Hamerton, “a cer- 
tain Mr. Hamerton.” He wrangled with Sir 
William Eden and even his friend Leyland 
about the price for ordered pictures, in each 
case making the whole transaction public; he 
attacked Tom Taylor and F. Wedmore for 
misquotations in their writings (he who had 
been guilty of the same thing himself), he 
quarrelled with the Academy when they re- 
painted an old sign of his, “the famous Lion 
and Butterfly wrangle;”’ and wrote most in- 
sulting letters to Wyke Bayliss, who has suc- 
ceeded him in the presidency. He withdrew 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 191 





all his pictures from the Paris Exposition, 
because the American colonel, C. R. Haw- 
kins, had refused a few of his etchings in a 
rather impolite manner. ‘The real reason was 
lack of space, and one could hardly expect 
from an American colonel the manners of a 
Chesterfield. Surely, Whistler did not possess 
them himself. He, at all times, practised more 
“manner” than manners, his language had 
at times an irritating touch of rudeness and 
coarseness. ‘The feuds were endless. He con- 
tinually baited his fellow artists. He called 
the pre-Raphaelites “What a damn crew.” 
Legros, Val Prinsep, W. P. Frith, Sir Fred- 
erick Leighton and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 
were at one time or another recipients. Every- 
body who came in contact with him, William 
M. Chase, ‘‘ the masher of the Avenues,” Theo- 
dore Child, who had to bear the brunt of a pun 
on his name, etc., all have some queer experi- 
ences to tell about him. 

George Moore, who had stood so gallantly 
by Whistler’s side, was thrown over without 
much ado as soon as he remained neutral, and 
did not join the front ranks of the fighting 
host in the Sir William Eden episode. Swin- 
burne did not fare better; nor his friend Stott 
of Oldham, on whom he had passed such ex- 
aggerated eulogies in the beginning of his 


192 The Whistler Book 








career. Even his oldest friend and supporter, 
Kennedy, the picture dealer, was finally be- 
spattered with the mud of Whistler’s invec- 
tives. His bon mots and repartee in ordinary 
life were as significant as those in his pam- 
phlets, letters and catalogues. We all remem- 
ber his ““ Why drag in Velasquez! ” his ““ Good- 
ness gracious! you don’t fancy a man owns a 
picture because he bought it,” or “ Indeed! it 
is not every man in England I paint for.” 
Then again talking about Leighton, “ Yes, 
and he paints too.” In meeting Du Maurier 
and Wilde at one of the exhibitions Whistler 
burst forth: “ I say, which one of you invented 
the other, eh!” 'The famous repartee, Whis- 
tler: —“ Nature’s creeping up.’ Oscar 
Wilde: “ Heavens, I wish I had said that!” 
“You will,” dryly replied Whistler. 

Most of his adversaries were smaller men or, 
at any rate, lacked the faculty of repartee, and 
for a witty man it was easy enough to mock 
them out of existence. Only Oscar Wilde, 
who himself made a profession of scattering 
corrosive epigrams, occasionally got the best 
of him. His sarcastic remark, “ With our 
James, vulgarity begins at home; would that 
it might stop there,” was one of the sentences 

. that made Whistler lay aside his pen for a 
while and ponder on reciprocity. ‘The famous 


ie Metropolitan Museum, New York 
MR. KENNEDY: PORTRAIT STUDY. 








Whistler’s Iconoclasm 193 


Whistler v. Ruskin libel suit was gotten up, 
I believe, largely for effect. It happened nat- 
- urally enough, but Whistler made the most of 
it. And, from the press agent’s point of view, 
it was the opportunity of a life time. 

In 1877 Sir Coutts Lindsey had organized 
an independent gallery in opposition to the 
London Royal Academy. _Among the ex- 
hibitors were Burne-Jones, Millais, Leigh- 
ton and Whistler. ‘The works of the pre- 
Raphaelites were praised but Whistler’s noc- 
turnes were ignored or sneered at. He per- 
haps would have taken no notice of the or- 
dinary criticisms, but when John Ruskin, who 
then was in the prime of his fame, wrote in his 
“Fors Clavigera,” an art publication, a short 
and most obtrusive paragraph about the pic- 
tures, he put on his paint and feathers once 
more and went on the war path. It is incred- 

ible how a man like Ruskin could have ever 
been so bitter and pedantic, to write the fol- 
lowing paragraph: 


“ Lastly the mannerisms and errors of these 
pictures (by Burne-Jones), whatever may be 
their extent, are never affected or indolent. 
Their work is natural to the painter, however 
strange to us; and it is wrought with utmost 
conscience of care, however far, to his own or 


194 The Whistler Book 


our desire, the result may be yet incomplete. 
Scarcely so much can be said for any other 
pictures of the modern school; their eccentrici- 
ties are most always in some degree forced, 
and their imperfections gratuitously, if not 
impertinently indulged. For Mr. Whistler’s 
sake, no less than for the protection of the pur- 
chasers, Sir Coutts Lindsey ought not to have 
admitted works into the gallery in which the 
ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly ap- 
proached the aspect of the wilful imposture. 
I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impu- 
dence before now; but never expected to hear 
a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for fling- 
ing a pot of paint in the public’s face. 
JoHN RuskIN.” 


The suit went to trial before Judge Hud- 
dleston and a special jury, November 25th, 
1878, and Whistler won the case, although one 
farthing damages were allowed him. He pub- 
lished a small brown covered paper pamphlet: 
* Whistler v. Ruskin — Art and Art Critics,” 
the same year. Not satisfied with his scant 
victory, he endeavoured to strike back at his 
still powerful adversary by publishing a hodge- 
podge réswmé of Ruskin’s writings and delib- 
erately stringing together a number of well 
known sentences in such a way that they have 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 195 


no connection whatever. All this is amusing 
but smacks of the mountebank. 

The Mortimer Menpes incident shows a dif- 
ferent side of his nature. It was a controversy 
as to who was “the father of the decorative 
revolution,’ Menpes or Whistler. Intensely 
sympathetic with the work of Japan’s great 
painters and craftsmen, Menpes’ impressions 
of her cities, temples, shrines, theatres, gardens, 
and museums, received during a few months’ 
stay in that land of delight, are worthy of con- 
sideration, but he had no claim to the decora- 
tive innovation, not even to the pink hue of 
his house, as Whistler had mixed the colour 
himself one summer afternoon, when Menpes 
was still his pupil. When a dispute was of 
real importance Whistler was apt to ignore it 
entirely, and let others fight it out for him. It 
was too serious a matter for exchange of witty 
remarks. This shows that Whistler, at times, 
realized the value of silence. 

Even as there were friends and acquaint- 
ances and associates with whom he never quar- 
relled, he liked Carlo Pelligrini to the very 
end. He never picked a quarrel with Sarasate, 
nor with the Comte Montesquieu, though most 
people did. Charles Keene, the caricaturist, 
never writhed under Whistler’s “ strong arm.” 
Even Sheridan Ford came out unscathed, al- 


196 The Whistler Book 


though they were never on terms of “ com- 
monplace ” amity and acquiescence. Nor did 
ever his American acquaintances advance to 
“warm personal friends.” H.W. Singer says 
in his little monograph that “ Perhaps Whis- 
tler’s human soul was occupied by a double 
portion of malice, invidiousness and pettiness, 
so that his artistic spirit might be entirely free 
and unfettered in its greatness.” As good an 
explanation as many others. 

He wrote down those records he thought 
important as did Casanova his amours and 
Cellini his assassinations and, collected into a 
book, they form a sort of autobiography to 
those who can read between the lines. He 
had a way, as Pennell tells us, half-laugh- 
ing, half-serious, of calling it his Bible. 
“Well, you know, you have only to look, and 
there it all is in the Bible,” or “I am afraid 
you do not know the Bible as you should,” he 
would reply to some question about his work 
or his experiences as an artist. 

As remarked previously, his attacks were 
remarkably free from all personal and domes- 
tic references, they referred solely to art trans- 
actions related to the profession. Whistler was 
an artist, and naturally over-sensitive. He 
could not help being impatient of criticisms 
that utterly failed to see the aim of his work, 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 197 


sometimes praising him for qualities a painter 
would blush to possess and again heaping un- 
merited blame on admirable achievements. 
Things really irritated him and he worked 
himself into a white fury, often over nothing. 
Later on his love for notoriety and his pose 
made him exaggerate the importance of events. 
As in the case of every master, there were, of 
course, followers and disciples. To these, the 
master held forth, now instilling a principle 
of art, now relating an encounter with this or 
that critic. Mr. Menpes speaks quite truth- 
fully when he says: “ All the same, he was one 
of the true fearless champions that art ever 
had, he fought with the dignity of the artist, 
demanded consideration and courteous treat- 
ment, and upheld dignity of workmanship, 
never tired of exposing and exploiting the 
ignorance of the average press critic.” 

The real Whistler, then, as his closest friends 
saw him, was an impulsive, quixotic, erratic, 
if you like, but, above and beyond everything 
else, an artist of indisputable genius who 
fought a losing battle for a quarter of a cen- 
tury; jested through it all, and finally tri- 
umphed magnificently. His minor accom- 
plishments were illumined by the flare of news- 
paper polemics; his greater and nobler quali- 
ties were too often obscured by the lack of com- 


198 The Whistler Book 


prehension. Yet there were times when Whis- 
tler gave of his best simply and sincerely to 
all who had the perception to receive his gift. 
Such an occasion was that on which he deliv- 
ered for the first time his immortal lecture on 
art, “Ten O’Clock.” He chose this title be- 
cause he did not want the people to rush to him 
from the dinner table, as to the theatre. Ten 
o'clock was early enough. ‘The audience and 
critics who greeted him in Prince’s Hall, Lon- 
don, on that never to be forgotten occasion, 
were puzzled by what they chose to regard as 
Whistler’s “new pose.” As a matter of fact, 
he was not posing at all, but had called them 
to him that he might impart to them, out of 
his very heart, the standard of artistic faith 
by which his life was ruled. It was a revolt 
not so much against the conclusions of modern 
paintings nor a plea for Japanese art (he does 
not mention Japan except once in the beautiful 
final sentence: “The story of the beautiful is 
already complete, hewn in the marble of Par- 
thenon — and broidered, with the birds, upon 
the fan of Hokusai at the foot of Fusiyama ”’) 
as against the pedantic and realistic methods 
in art, a fierce crusade for the ideals of paint- 
ing. His style is virile, individual, marvel- 
lously condensed and suggestive. It contains 
a number of beautifully put phrases like: “ Art 


% 


rip 


Bit 





THE LIME BURNER (ETCHING) 





Whistler’s Iconoclasm 199 


happens — no hovel is safe, no prince can de- 
pend upon it.” 

“ Colours are not more since the heavy hang- 
ings of night were first drawn aside, and the 
loveliness of night revealed.” 

“Tf art be rare to-day it is seldom hereto- 
fore.” In these aphorisms he puts his finger 
on the secret of literary expression — the ap- 
plication of the simplest and subtlest means to 
the most complicated and inexistent subject. 

Paragraphs as the following must excite the 
admiration of every literary man. 

** Alas! ladies and gentlemen, Art has been 
maligned. She has naught in common with 
such practices. She is a goddess of dainty 
thought — reticent of habit, abjuring all ob- 
trusiveness, purposing in no way to better 
others.” 

“ She is, withal, selfishly occupied with her 
own perfection only — having no desire to 
teach — seeking and finding the beautiful in 
all conditions and at all times as did her priest 
Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque gran- 
deur and noble dignity in the Jews’ quarter 
of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its in- 
habitants were not Greeks.” 

Or again: 

“Humanity takes the place of art, and 
God’s creations are excused by their useful- 


200 The Whistler Book 


ness. ‘Beauty is confounded with virtue and, 
before a work of art, it is asked: ‘ What good 
shall it do?’ ” 

“ Hence it is that nobility of action in his life 
is hopelessly linked with the merit of the work 
that portrays it; and thus the people have 
acquired the habit of looking, as who should 
say, not at a picture, but through it, at some 
human fact, that shall, not from a social point 
of view, better their mental or moral state. So 
we have come to hear of the painting that ele- 
vates, and the duty of the painter — of the 
picture that is full of thought and of the panel 
that merely decorates.” 

Whistler fought principally for three big 
ideas: 

“That the main object of painting was to 
express the beauty of the technical medium 
unalloyed by any exterior motive, independent 
of time and place.” | 

“That art was not restricted to any special 
locality, but universal, cosmopolitan.” 

“That art could be understood only by the 
artist and that all criticism consequently was 
futile occupation.” 

All these arguments have sifted down into 
the rank and file of the profession, they have 
become common property and are continually . 
used in the every-day conversations of artists. 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 201 


They are all three open to criticism, and in a 
way (like all things, according to Walt Whit- 
man) have done as much harm as good. 

That the main object of art is art, cannot be 
confuted. But what is art in painting! Is all 
poetry and sentiment in a painting to be ex- 
pressed by the actual handling of the colours, 
the process of handling and the mechanism of 
brushwork! Can all the poetry be contained 
in the objects themselves and the way they 
are painted? It has become the fashion of 
artists to say that they are painters, not artists. 

Now what do they mean by this? What 
is a painter? A person who can handle the 
brush and who knows colour, or, in other 
words, who masters the tool of his trade. And 
what is an artist? The term artist is not lim- 
ited to one profession. It applies to a musi- 
cian or a sculptor as well as painter. In call- 
ing somebody an artist we mean to convey that 
he has a poetic conception in his work. But 
he must surely possess an equal mastery of 
technique or he would be unable to express it. 
And is the painter absolutely void of poetic 
conception? Surely not. He tries to get the 
poetry out of the medium itself, while the artist 
adds something from the outside to the me- 
dium. In that sense Abbott Thayer, Ryder 
and Inness are artists, Sargent and Chase are 


202 The Whistler Book 


painters. But how about Chavannes, Whis- 
tler, Israels? I suppose they are both. There 
we are in a dilemma. They oppose subject 
painting; the beauty of the object, the poetry 
that is inherent in what they see before them, 
is supposed to be sufficient. But they object to 
the phrase that they are merely interested in 
surface beauty, they assert that they search 
for character and the inner meaning of things 
as much as anybody else. In this they contra- 
dict their own and Whistler’s argument. 
Whistler himself was all his life a subject 
painter. Of course he has avoided telling 
stories, but he has suggested them, and given 
to each picture that vague note of interest 
which every true painting should possess. The 
main purpose is to make the picture more in- 
teresting. And you cannot make a picture 
more interesting without adding something. 
Painting for painting’s sake is an impossibil- 
ity. One cannot translate nature and life into 
colour without the help of the imagination. A 
little more or less, what is the difference? 

The second claim, that all art is cosmopoli- 
tan, has been welcomed by all our ex-patriots, 
who have neither the strength nor the inclina- 
tion to discover virgin material in their own 
country and to translate it into beauty. It 
furnishes a marvellous loop-hole for the imi- 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 208 


tative talent. Whistler said: ‘“ There is no 
such thing as English art — art is art when it 
is good enough.” ‘This is. at its best merely 
a truism. We perfectly agree that only good 
workmanship makes a painting worthy of the 
name of art, but surely Hogarth, Gainsbor- 
ough and Constable have a true native flavour 
in their work, which they could have gained 
nowhere but on British soil. All art, when 
perfect, can command universal appreciation, 
but it is perfect in most instances only when it 
has, perhaps not so much a local interest, but 
a local motive or stimulant, i. e. it must have 
inhaled the atmosphere of some peculiar local- 
ity and the faculty to exude it again. I believe, 
Whistler used his argument largely as a sub- 
terfuge, to hide his own enthusiasm for Japa- 
nese art. He understood how to amalgamate 
the foreign influences and his own individual- 
ity (this I have analyzed at length in some 
other chapter). His art in a sense was cos- 
mopolitan, but merely because he was the first 
to adopt the new principles of an Eastern art; 
and it is just as easy to trace American as 
Japanese or Old Master traits in his work. I 
claim that all great art is local, and mention 
only three of the greatest painters, Velasquez, 
Rembrandt, and Diirer, to prove my argu- 
ment. ‘They surely were imbued with the 


204 The Whistler Book 


spirit of their time and country. And I am 
equally certain that a painter who would ex- 
press America as it is to-day (as Whitman 
has done in his time in literature) would be 
a greater man than Whistler. The foremost 
masters of the nineteenth century, Monet, 
Manet, Chavannes, and Whistler, were all in- 
novators in technical problems, for they dis- 
covered new mediums of expression, and, in a 
way, only prepared the way for more concen- 
trated expressions of art. 

The third great theory of the essay, which 
consists largely of Whistler’s arrogant asser- 
tions as to the superiority of the artist and his 
own hatred for so called connoisseur, dilet- 
tante, and critic, has made a very proud man 
of the painter. Imagine an ordinary wielder 
of the brush reading the following sentence: 
“ Vulgarity — under whose fascinating influ- 
ence ‘the many’ have elbowed ‘ the few,’ and 
the gentle circle of Art swarms with the intox- 
icated mob of mediocrity, whose leaders prate 
and counsel, and call aloud, where the gods 
once spoke in whispers. 

“And now from their midst the dilettante 
stalks abroad. The amateur is loosed. The 
voice of the esthetic is heard in the land, and 
the catastrophe is upon us.” 

“The artist in fulness of heart and head 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 205 








is glad, and laughs aloud, and is happy in his 
strength, and is merry at the pompous pre- 
tension — the solemn stillness that surrounds 
him.” 

Whistler lashed himself into the belief that 
he was the sole judge of his work. This is a 
very erroneous attitude. Creation is an un- 
conscious process. Few artists have the criti- 
cal faculty to analyze their work, and years 
pass before he is able to get a clear view of 
his own work. If we were an art-loving na- 
tion things would be different, but interest 
in painting has become a privilege of the rich 
and of museums; it is too remote to be con- 
sidered an immediate pleasure. It needs some 
kind intermediator to bring about more sym- 
pathy between the public and the artist. What 
writers, who can write and to whom the smell 
of paint is not unfamiliar, see in a picture, is 
one thing. What a painter desires to express 
is an entirely different proposition, but this 
is no reason to find fault with the writer. 
What he says may be explanatory and inter- 
esting. A work of art is made to arouse sen- 
sations, pure or «esthetic, emotions and vagrant 
thoughts, and they will differ vastly in every 
beholder. This may be beyond the pale of un- 
attached writers and gentlemen clerks of col- 
lections and appointed preachers, into which 


206 The Whistler Book 


Whistler has divided the critics, but there is 
no argument necessary to make any reader be- 
lieve that authors like Hawthorne, the Gon- 
courts, Guy de Maupassant, Paul Heyse, 
Mallarmé, knew how to write about art. 
Whistler also laughed at the pretence of the 
state as a fosterer of art. In this he was right. 
Art can not be forced upon a community. It 
is a matter of individual appreciation. It is 
a matter of conquest. 
- But this is, after all, a busy world we are 
living in, and unless things are pointed out 
to us we may overlook them or not even learn 
of their existence, no matter how hungry we 
may be for new sensations. And that is the 
crucial point where the art writer may prove 
useful. The majority of artists entertain no 
kindly feeling towards art writers. In their 
just anger with critics, who arrogate to them- 
selves the right of telling an artist how he 
should have done his work, they forget that 
the real writer on art, misnamed critic, has 
quite a different aim, and is their best friend. 
For he takes upon himself the duty of medi- 
ating between artist and public. Without 
him, we may say, the true artist is nowhere. 
True art (in opposition to commercial work 
and all vulgar practices to which pictorialism 
is put) is a difficult matter to comprehend. 


Whistler’s Iconoclasm 207 


When the public, composed of people whose 
energy is drained almost to exhaustion by 
daily associations and occupations, suddenly 
encounters a new phase of art, it can no more 
formulate a just opinion of it than it could 
when placed face to face with the tablets of 
Karnak and Sakkarah. Just as the electrician 
in a new invention must explain the working 
of natural forces, so must the “ critic” explain 
the work of the artistic forces which come into 
play in the production of a picture. Most 
artists have become popular —as far as the 
true artist can become popular — only after 
the eyes of the public have been opened by . 
some critic. Such artists as find no apostle to 
proclaim their creed die unattended. Many 
an artist left his family in poverty; but after 
his death critics dwelt at length upon the beau- 
ties of his pictures, and only then the public 
began to pay enormous prices for them. 

And Whistler himself! Does he not refute 
his own contempt by his Barnum-Boulanger- 
like use of the press? True enough all his lit- 
tle squibs and elaborate bids for notoriety had 
some underlying truth which he wished to ex- 
press. But if ever an artist realized the power 
of type it was Whistler. 

As for the ordinary critic — he deserves our 
deepest sympathy. He proves beyond dispute 


208 The Whistler Book 


“that there is something rotten” in our art 
appreciation. Old Japan and the Primitifs 
knew them not. He is harmless, however, as 
he has absolutely nothing to do with art.. He 
is a necessary evil produced by the shortcom- 
ings of the time. Anatole France’s remark 
about art criticism, that it should be the adven- 
ture of one’s soul among masterpieces, is 
enough, but he forgets that the adventure 
should be the experience of a literary artist. 
For the only criticism that is lasting is either 
biographical in tendency or artistic com- 
mentary, which by a new work of art reflects 
the beauty of the original. If a picture is 
really beautiful, one should be able to write a 
poem about it, or express it in music, dancing 
or some other art. 





PORTRAIT OF STEPHANE MALLARMf& (LITHOGRAPH). 








CHAPTER XI 
AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM 


OnE afternoon in 1892, walking along the 
boulevards with Stéphane Mallarmé, during 
absinthe hours, I met Whistler. The poet and 
the painter raised their hats and shook hands 
and exchanged a few words in French, which 
I did not understand. I was introduced, Whis- 
tler bowed, shook hands and then we passed 
on. It was one of those fugitive meetings that 
occur so frequently and to which no importance 
can be attached. It gives one the sole and 
rather futile privilege of having seen Whistler, 
just as I have seen Liszt, the king of Bavaria, 
Ibsen and many others, without having be- 
come acquainted with them. 

I do not remember how Whistler was 
dressed, I only recall the top hat, monocle and 
cane. He looked rather undersized to me, a 
trifle affected, but exceedingly picturesque, 
and possessing that peculiar magnetism which 
we feel in the presence of great men. 

209 


210 The Whistler Book 


As for a more intimate analysis of Whis- 
tler’s personality, I must refer to some of his 
friends, who have expressed themselves in 
print. I shall cite a number of paragraphs 
that have the merit of descriptive | verity, 
and that will give a clear insight into his curi- 
ous, highstrung character, as it appeared in 
every-day life. 

“What strikes one in Whistler’s biogra- 
phy,” says Laurence Binyon, the London 
critic and poet, “is the extraordinary amount 
of time, trouble and energy he expended on 
things and people that did not matter, the 
record of his squabbles, the fanatical loyalty 
of his enmities, the rage of his ‘egotism.’ ” 
This is the Whistler that the world knew. But 
there was another Whistler, Mr. Binyon sug- 
gests, — “A man of singular sensitiveness, 
who shunned the vulgar daytime and stole 
abroad at twilight . . . bent always on reveal- 
ing to his fellow men the loveliness that lurks 
in familiar sights and among the dingy aspects 
of a modern city.” 

One of his earliest intimates who writes of 
him in Vanity Fair, as one of the “ Men of 
the Day,” signed John Junior, says: “ Mr. 
Whistler — ‘ Jimmy ’ as his friends call him — 
is personally one of the most charming, simple 
and witty of men. He touches nothing but he 


As His Friends Knew Him 211 


embellishes and enlivens it with startling nov- 
elty of conceit. His hereditary lock of white 
hair is a rallying point of humour wherever he 
goes, and his studio is the resort of all who 
delight in hearing the new thing.” 

The article continues to say that it is evi- 
dently not difficult for the newspaper corre- 
spondent to approach him, as much had been 
written about his charming house and spacious 
studio in Chelsea. He was so thoroughly an 
artist that material seemed indifferent to him. 
His famous “ Peacock Room,” which he did 
for Mr. Leyland, shows his genius as a dec- 
orator, and conservative opinion is, that he was 
even greater as an etcher than as a painter. 
He had engraved, and painted in water- , 
colours, of course, and his attire, from his top- 
coat to his shoe strings, was made from his own 
designs. Apparently he chafed under the aca- 
demic tyranny of even the tailor. Of his pow- 
ers in mimicry and in character acting his 
friend never tired of talking and telling anec- 
dotes which illustrate it, and indicate that even 
in drollery his art is as subtle as in work of 
seriousness and dignity. “ Dickens was not 
a patch on him,” said someone, recently, who 
had seen the pantomiming of both. 

Harper Pennington, one of his officially ac- 
knowledged pupils, gives a fine description of 


212 The Whistler Book 


the man in the “ Metropolitan Magazine ” of 
1910. 

“Whistler was not a tall man, but of trim 
and muscular appearance, broad-shouldered, 
strong-armed, and well set up — the result of 
West Point training. He was intensely act- 
ive and alert, although not in the least fidgety 
or nervous. His eyes were as bright as a 
bird’s, flashing from face to face in a group 
of persons. It is noteworthy that he moved 
his eyes and not his head from side to side, 
fixing each speaker in his turn. This may have 
been another effect of West Point. drills — 
“Eyes right,’ °‘ Eyes left. His long hands 
and bony wrists suggested force and delicacy 
of touch. If he was a trifle robin-legged, the 
effect served to enhance a certain dandified 
attitude he frequently assumed, especially 
when chaffing someone who deserved it, to the 
delight of the gallery, without which he seldom 
thought it worth while to perform. 

“The man was above all things gregari- 
ous — he did not like to be alone — and most 
intensely human. He had his foibles, faults 
and virtues like the rest. The Whistler I knew 
was clean of person and speech. I never heard 
him utter one word that might not be repeated 
without offending the most easily shocked of 
prudes. He has been described as untidy. He 


As His Friends Knew Him 213 


was, on the contrary, the only man who ever 
washed his hair three times every day, and was 
fastidious to the point of being prinky about 
his person. His clothes, generally black, were 
always simple in the extreme and spotless, even 
when, in those old Venice days of dreadful 
poverty, they were worn threadbare — actu- 
ally in holes. His courage was indisputable. 
He would fight any man, no matter what size 
or weight, and the jaunty cheerfulness with 
which he bore privations, when he lacked every- 
thing, even the materials necessary for his 
work, deceived those who were his daily com- 
panions and sufficiently proved his moral 
pluck. 

*“ He wore a black silk ribbon tie at his neck, 
a bow with six inch loops and fluttering ends, 
but that was all that was unusual in his attire, 
unless the long bamboo wands of canes —a 
dark one for the night and a light for day — 
should be included. Nothing that glittered, 
not even a watch-chain or a ring, formed any 
part of his costume. A tiny white or yellow 
flower at his buttonhole was his unique adorn- 
ment. 

“Ts it true, as Thackeray declared, that 
ordinary mortals do, indeed, delight to pry 
into the weakness of the strong, the smallness 

of the great? I have thought it best to show 


214 The Whistler Book 


my Whistler as he really was, a simple, kind 
and tender-hearted fellow, who turned his best 
side towards the unappreciative world he lived 
in, not from vanity of person, but to hide his 
poverty, and the makeshifts he was driven to 
employ, as a man will say ‘I like to walk,’ 
when he can’t afford to ride. His cackling 
laugh hid many a bitter thrust that had 
gone home and hurt him to the quick. He 
laughed, and then would come the swift riposte 
of witty repartee. He never attacked a living 
creature, never struck the first blow, and would 
have been glad to live in peace with all the 
world. But so coarse were the criticisms of 
his person and his work that he was driven to 
defend Art, which was the only thing he could 
not joke about. Upon the rare occasions when 
he talked with me, as a master might, about 
his work, his face itself seemed transfigured. 
“Brave when he was well, his cowardice 
when ill or in pain was comical. If he caught 
cold he would disappear, and those who knew 
him well were sure he had fled to his doctor — 
his brother’s house in Wimpole Street. Dr. 
Whistler told me that Jimmy would appear 
all muffled up and say: ‘ Willie, I am ill! I 
am going up to bed — here —and won’t go 
home until you’ve cured me!’ Any little mal- 
ady was enough to demoralize him. In his 


ee 





ARRANGEMENT IN FLESH-—COLOUR AND BLACK 
THEODORE DURET. 


-- 








As His Friends Knew Him 215 


hours of weakness he would hide away like a 
wounded animal and not show up again until 
he had been nursed back to his normal state. 

“Whistler was extremely frugal and ab- 
stemious. He ate and drank most moderately 
the plainest fare. He liked dainty dishes and 
rare old wine, but had a horror of the ‘ groan- 
ing board’ at huge set feasts and formal ban- 
quets. He could cook quite decently himself, 
and sometimes made an omelet or scrambled 
eggs, but these culinary feats I never saw per- 
formed; as to the Master’s knowledge of wine, 
it was very limited indeed. I have seen him 
mistake a heavy vintage of champagne for 
‘'Tisane.’ I néver saw him cook anything, 
even in his poorest days, in Venice, but I know 
that he liked a good dinner at a club even 
when it was punctually served and consisted 
of quite ordinary delicacies such as other men 
delight in.” 

The notes from his childhood are tie 
scarce. In his mother’s diary, written during 
the stay in Russia, we find the following refer- 
ence to him when he was twelve years old: 
“.. . Jimmie’s eagerness to attain all his de- 
sires for information and his fearlessness often 
make him offend and it makes him appear less 
amiable than he really is.” And at some other 
place, when they had watched some parade 


PIG The Whistler Book — 


with the Empress passing: “ He behaved like 
aman. With one compassing arm he guarded 
me, and with the other kept people at a proper 
distance, and I must confer, brilliant as the 
spectacle was, the greatest pleasure was de- 
rived by the conduct of my dear and manly 
boy.” Miss Emma Palmer, his cousin, de- 
scribes Whistler at this period as “tall and 
slight, with a pensive, delicate face, shaded by 
soft brown curls. He had a foreign appear- 
ance and manners, which, added to his natural 
abilities, made him very charming even at that 
age. He was one of the sweetest, loveliest boys 
I ever knew and was a great favourite.” 

* Whistler, as a boy, was exactly what those 
who knew him as a man would expect: gay 
and bright, absorbed in his work when that 
work was in any way related to art, brave and 
fearless, selfish, if selfishness is another word 
for ambition, considerate and kindly above all 
to his mother. The boy, like the man, was 
delightful to those who knew and understood 
him, ‘ startling’ and ‘ alarming’ to those who 
did not.” 

Joseph Pennell, in his excellent book, has 
given us a most fascinating description of 
Whistler as a student in Paris and a young 
painter in England. No one can refuse to 
admire the loyalty of this writer, who has gath- 


As His Friends Knew Him IAF 


ered with such loving care every note of inter- 
est in Whistler’s life. ‘The following para- 
graphs are from his Quartier Latin chapter; 
“'To Whistler the Frenchman was more sym- 
pathetic than the English, in his serious as in 
his light hours. His fellow students brought 
back to England the impression that he was 
an idler; it is hard to-day to make people be- 
lieve that he was anything else in his youth. 
And yet he worked in Paris as prodigiously as 
he played. ‘To us it is incomprehensible how 
he found time to read as a student, and yet 
he knew the literature of the period thor- 
oughly, and always the charm of his manner 
and his courtesy made it delightful to do any- 
thing for him. Few men ever ate less than 
Whistler, but few were more fastidious about 
what they did eat — no man ever shrank more 
from thought, or at the mention of death than 
Whistler. ‘There was always in life so much 
for him to do and so little time in which to 
do it. i 

“He was popular with the children, and 
delighted in music, though he was not too crit- 
ical, for he was known to call the passing 
hurdy-gurdy into his garden and have it 
ground under his windows. Occasionally the 
brother (Greaves) played, so that Whistler 
might dance. He was always full of droller- 


218 The Whistler Book 


ies and fun. He would imitate a man sawing, 


or two men fighting at the door, so cleverly 
that his brother never ceased to be astonished 
when he walked into the room alone and un- 
hurt. He delighted in American mechanical 
toys and his house was full of Japanese dolls. 
One great doll, dressed like a man, he would 
take with him not only to Greaves, but to din- 
ners at the Little Holland House, where the 
Princess then lived, and to other houses, where 
he put it through amazing performances.” 
Many notes are quoted from the writings of 
his associates. Here are some of the most in- 
teresting of them: Mr. Luke Ionides writes: 
“He was a great favourite among us all, and 
also among the grisettes we used to meet at 
the gardens where dancing went on. I re- 
member one especially, they called her the 
tigress. She seemed madly in love with 
Jimmie and would not allow any other woman 
to talk to him when she was present. She sat 
for him several times with her curly hair down 
her back. She had a good voice and I have 
often thought she suggested ‘Trilby’ to 
Du Maurier. One time in a rage she tore up 
a lot of drawings, when Whistler came home 
and saw them piled high on the table, he 
wept.” If Whistler had money in his pockets, 
Mr. Ionides says, he spent it royally on others. 


As His Friends Knew Him 219 


Mr. Rowley, “ Taffy,” writes: “It was in 
1857-8 that I knew Whistler, and a most 
amusing and eccentric fellow he was, with his 
long black thick curly hair and large felt hat 
with a broad black ribbon around it. I re- 
member on the wall was a representation of 
him, I believe done by Du Maurier, a sketch 
of him, then a fainter one and then finally an 
interrogation — very clever it was and very 
much like the original. In those days he did 
not work hard.” 

“Whistler was never wholly one of us,” Mr. 
Armstrong tells us; Drouet does not think 
that Whistler worked hard, certainly not in 
usual student fashion at the schools. He was 
every evening at the Students’ ball, and as he 
never got up until ten or eleven in the morn- 
ing, where was the time for work? 

The personal observations and a glance at 
one of Whistler’s self-portraits of this period 
should give us a fair vision of the young 
Whistler at Paris. ‘The earliest known self- 
portrait in oil is the one painted in Paris about 
1859, the Whistler with a hat, engraved by 
Gueérard, which was lent by Samuel P. Avery 
to the Memorial Exhibition at Boston. It 
shows him with a slight mustache, a large 
Rubens hat, a big dotted tie, and a coat with 
a velvet collar. It is a good example of a 


220 The Whistler Book 


dark silhouette against dark arrangement. 
The face has a few strong headlights, the re- 
mainder of it in middle tints, while the rest of 
the figure — the hat, the hair, the bust — are 
darker than the background. The space ar- 
rangement and position of the head are clever, 
but the shape of the bust is awkward, and, I 
fear slightly contorted. 

Mrs. Jameson writes: “ The man, as I knew 
him, was so different from the descriptions 
and presentations I have read of him, that I 
would like to speak of the other side of his 
character. It is impossible to conceive a more 
unfailingly courteous, considerate and delight- 
ful companion than Whistler as I found him, 
and I never heard a complaint of anything in 
my simple household arrangements from him. 
Any little failure was treated as a joke. His 
courtesy to servants and maids was particu- 
larly charming, indeed. .I cannot conceive of 
his quarrelling with any one without provoca- 
tion. His talk about his own work revealed 
a very different man to me from the self-satis- 
fied man he is usually believed to have been. 
He knew his powers, of course, but he was 
painfully aware of his defects —in drawing 
for instance. To my Judgment he was the 
most absolutely truthful man about himself 
that I ever met. I never knew him to hide an 


| " 
AY ON 





THE UNSAFE TENEMENT (ETCHING). 





As His Friends Knew Him 221 


opinion or thought — nor to try to excuse an 
action.” 

Mr. Watts Denton, on the other hand, tries 
to make us believe that Dante Gabriel Ros- 
setti got exceedingly tired of Whistler after 
a while and considered him a brainless fellow, 
who had no more than a quick malicious wit 
at the expense of others, and no real philos- 
ophy or humour. | 

Otto Bacher, the American painter and 
etcher, has written a delightful book entitled 
“With Whistler in Venice.” The title is 
slightly deceptive as the contents are largely 
an eulogy on the beauties of Venice. Whis- 
tler is a mere picturesque incident. Bacher 
describes his friend in this fashion: “ When he 
was talking the glass (monocle) was dropped. 
If he sat at one of the tables at the café the 
clanging of the eye-glass accentuated his con- 
versation. If he was presented to any one it 
would drop and dangled to and fro from the 
neat cord for a few moments, to be readjusted 
after some moments of fumbling. His mon- 
ocle was always a source of entertainment. 
He generally carried in his hand a Japanese 
bamboo cane, using it to emphasize his re- 
marks. 

*“ He rose early, worked strenuously and re- 
tired late. He seemed to forget ordinary 


222 The Whistler Book 


hours for meals and would often have to be 
called over and over again. He was a fastidi- 
ous smoker, but a continuous one — his choice 
of words was always a marked feature. His 
manners were elegant. He would always 
adapt himself to any situation and, at the same 
time, retain his dignity and personality.” 
Another interesting account was furnished 
in the Cornhill Magazine, 19038, by Mortimer 
Menpes: “ Whistler was of all men essentially 
a purist — a purist in every sense of the word, 
both as a man and a worker. As aman he was 
sadly misunderstood by the masses. Whis- 
tler’s nature was ever a combative one and his 
long and brilliant career was a continuous 
fight throughout. He revealed himself only 
to the few, and even that small inner circle, 
of whom I was one of the most devoted, saw 
the real man but seldom. But on those rare 
occasions Whistler could be gentle, sweet and 
sympathetic, almost feminine, so lovable was 
he. Whistler treated his hair as everything 
about him, purely from an artist’s standpoint, 
as a picture, as a bit of decoration. Whistler 
wanted to produce certain lines in the frock 
coat and he insisted upon having the skirts cut 
very long, while there were to be capes over the 
shoulders, which must need form graceful 
curves in sympathy with the long-flowing 


As His Friends Knew Him 223 


lines of the skirt. ‘The idea of wearing white 
duck trousers with a black coat was not con- 
ceived in order to be unlike other people, but 
because they formed a harmony in black and 
white he loved. His straight brimmed hats, 
his cane, the way he held his cane, each and 
every detail was observed, but only as the 
means of forming a decorative whole.” 

Less personal are Val Prinsep’s remarks: 
“TI have always thought that behind the 
“poseur ’ there was quite a different Whistler. 
Those who saw him with his mother were con- 
scious of the fact that the irrepressible Jimmy 
was very human. No one could have been a 
better son or more attentive to his mother’s 
wishes; after his marriage I have heard that 
the life of this most Bohemian ‘ poseur’ was 
most harmonious and domestic. 

“The grammar of expression was a con- 
stant stumbling block to him, hence his slow- 
ness in producing. For let it not be supposed 
his pictures, which looked so simple in their 
execution, were produced with facility. The 
late Mr. Leyland told me that when he was 
sitting for his portrait, a standing full-length, 
Whistler nearly cried over the drawing of the 
legs and bitterly regretted that he had not 
learned something of the construction of: the 
human form during his student years. He 


224 The Whistler Book 


once spoke of himself as a ‘ soiled butterfly.’ 
Surely this is the first recorded instance of a 
butterfly being an aggressive and vindictive 
insect. ‘This however was a mere pose of 
Whistler’s, the result of a well considered de- 
termination to exalt himself, which he found 
_in the long run paid, even as all judicious pub- 
licity is said to bring in a sum percentage of 
profit.” 

A. Ludovici, a New York dealer, makes 
quite a hero of Whistler. “‘ He soon made me 
feel that I was talking to an artist of great 
taste and refinement, full of love for his work 
and a ready wit, and, in spite of an academic 
training just received in Paris, I became that 
moment devoted to him and his art. The lit- 
tle I had seen of it at the Grosvenor engen- 
dered a desire to learn more regarding the mys- 
terious technique of which he was such an un- 
doubted master and confirmed my predilection 
in favour of painting the scene of life sur- 
rounding in preference to the making up of 
the conventional subject so much in vogue. I 
who knew him for the last twenty years of his 
life always found him most simple in his tastes, 
firm in his convictions, generous and open- 
hearted to those whose friendship he relied on 
and always ready to help and oblige any one 
in whom his interests had been awakened. A 


As His Friends Knew Him 225 


more brilliant and staunch friend one could 
not wish to have had.” 

Also Alexander Harrison, the marie 
painter, expresses himself in a highly enthusi- 
astic manner: “I have never known a man 
of more sincere and genuine impulse even in 
ordinary human relations and I am convinced 
that no man existed who could have been more 
easily controlled on lines of response to a fair 
and square apprehension of his genuine quali- 
ties. When off his guard he was often a 
pathetic kid and I have spotted him in bash- 
ful moods, although it would be hard to con- 
vince the bourgeois of this. Wit, pathos, gen- 
tleness, affection, audacity, acridity, tenacity 
were brought instantly to the sensitive surface, 
like a spark by rough contact.” 

Mr. Perey Thomas says: “ He was a man 
who could never bear to be alone. Through 
his own open door strange people drifted. If 
they amused him he forgave them, however 
they presumed, and they usually did succeed. 
Whistler seldom painted men except when 
they came for their portraits, and the models 
_ drifting in and out of the door of Linsey Row, 
were mostly women. He liked to have them 
with him. Mr. Thomas thinks he felt it nec- 
essary to see them about his studio, for, as he 
watched their movements they would take the 


226 The Whistler Book 


pose that he wanted, or suggest a group, an > 
arrangement. He lived at a rate that would 
have killed most men, and at an expense in 
details that was fabulous.” 

Walter Gray speaks about Whistler’s 
technique. “‘ No one can realize who has not 
watched Whistler paint the agony that his 
work gave him. I have seen him, after a day’s 
struggle with a picture when things did not go, 
completely collapse, as from an illness. His 
drawing coat gave him infinite trouble. 
Whatever his friends charge against him it 
seems to me that Whistler’s faults and weak- 
nesses sprang from an unbalanced mentality; 
he was a deséquilibré, the common defect of 
great painters. Yet, underneath all his va- 
garies and eccentricities, one felt that inde- 
finable yet unmistakable being —a _ gentle- 
man.” 

Pennell gives a most valuable description of 
Whistler as a painter. “ The long nights of 
observation of the river were followed by long 
days of experiment in his studio. In the end 
he gave up even making notes of subjects and 
effects. It was impossible for him to choose 
and mix his colour at night, and he was 
compelled to trust his memory, which he cul- 
tivated, when he painted his nocturnes. He 
reshaped his brushes, usually heating them 


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As His Friends Knew Him 227 


over a candle, melting the glue and pushing 
the hairs into the form he wanted. Whistler 
told us he used a medium composed of opal, 
mastix and turpentine. The colours were ar- 
ranged upon a palette, a long oblong board 
some two feet by three with the ‘ Butterfly ’ 
inlaid in one corner; round the edge, sunken 
boxes for brushes and tubes. The palette was 
laid upon the table; the colours were placed, 
though, more frequently, there were no pure 
colours at all. Large quantities of different 
tones of prevailing colours in the fashion and 
his paints were mixed, and so much medium 
was used that he called it ‘sauce.’ Mr. 
Greaves says, that the nocturnes were mostly 
painted on very absorbant canvas, sometimes 
on panels, sometimes on bare brown holland 
sized. For the blue noctures the canvas was 
covered with a red ground, or the panel was 
of mahogany, which had the advantage of 
forcing up the blues. Others were done in a 
practically warm black ground. For the fire- 
works there was a lead ground, or if the night 
was grey — the canvas was grey. 

~ * So much ‘ sauce’ was used that, frequently, 
the canvas had to be thrown flat on the floor 
to keep the whole thing from running off. He 
washed the liquid colours on the canvas, light- 
ing and darkening the tone as he worked. In 


228 The Whistler Book 


many nocturnes the entire sky and water is 
rendered with great sweeps of the brush ex- 
actly the right tone. How many times he may 
have wiped out that sweeping tone is another 
matter. Some one remembers seeing the noc- 
turnes set out along the garden wall to bake in 
the sun, sometimes they dried out like body 
colour in the most unexpected manner. He 
had no recipe, no system. 

“In his painting it was surprising to see 
how much he accomplished in a short time. 
He would decide upon any local tone, putting 
it on with five or six big strokes, any variation 
of tones would be added in the same way. In 
a given time he would put down more facts 
than any man I ever knew. In the beginning 
of a pastel he drew his subject crisply and care- 
fully in outline with black crayon upon one of 
the sheets of tinted paper which fitted the gen- 
eral colour of the motives. A few touches 
with sky tinted pastels produced a remarkable 
effect. He never was in a hurry in his work, 
always careful and accomplished much. 
Every subject contrived some problem for 
nature which he wished to convey on canvas.” 

The portraits painted and etched by him- 
self and various artist friends also comment 
favourably upon his personality. William — 
Michael Rossetti, in his diary of February 5, 


As His Friends Knew Him 229 


1857, mentions seeing in Whistler’s studio “a 
clever, vivacious portrait of himself,” believed 
to be that belonging to the late George 
McCullough and which appears.as the front- 
piece to Pennell’s book. Another portrait 
sketch of this period or a little later was shown 
at the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art in 1910. 

Another portrait sketch can be seen in the 
Freer collection. 

In 1874 Whistler planned a big picture 
similar to Fantin-Latour’s “ Hommage a De- 
lacroix, only less serious and more eccentric in 
conception. Whistler was to be the centre 
_ figure and to be surrounded by the “ Woman 
in White” on a couch and a kimonoed lady 
walking about the studio, while Albert Moore 
and Fantin-Latour were chosen to serve as 
black notes. One of the studies, Whistler in 
his studio, is illustrated in Pennell. A chalk 
drawing belonging to Thomas Way is likewise 
in the same book. There are three etched por- 
traits in existence. A very early one dated 
1859, the “ Whistler with the White Lock,” 
which appeared as frontispiece in Ralph 
Thomas’ “Catalogue of Etchings and Dry- 
points of Whistler,” and an etching very sim- 
ilar to the 1867 portrait, dated 1874. _ 

In 1894 he was painting a portrait of him- 


230 The Whistler Book 


self in a white jacket which, according to the 
Pennells, was changed into a dark coat after 
the death of his wife. A full length portrait 
in long overcoat was in the Paris Exposition 
of 1900, under the title of “‘ Brown and Gold.” 
Another half length is known to belong to 
George W. Vanderbilt. 

A dry-point by Helleu, drawn in 1878, has 
many admirers, but is rather superficial as a 
characterization. ‘The most important por- 
trait is the Mephistophilean interpretation by 
Boldini, painted 1897 and shown at the Expo- 
sition in 1900. But I almost prefer a certain 
photograph which shows him with top-hat, 
and overcoat over his shoulder. It reminds 
me of the glimpse I caught of him that after- 
noon, in Paris years ago, when I was still care- 
free and had not the slightest idea that I would 
one day write a book about the man I passed 
so nonchalantly. 

The few paragraphs that are cited in this 
chapter may not do his personality full justice, 
but they must suffice. A personality can not 
be recalled from the shades. We can only pro- 
duce a mental image, and an abundance of 
notes would only confuse the outlines. His 
work remains, that is the principal thing. 
Even the greatest painters of the past are 
mere ghosts and visions to us. And although 


As His Friends Knew Him 231 


Whistler, more than any other modern painter, 
has the chance of marching down posterity, un- 
forgotten and wreathed in glory, a curious 
high-seasoned personality not unlike Ben- 
wenuto Cellini, the author of these lines must 
refrain, as he can add nothing new or original. 

Prophets or seers, call them what you will, 
in the arts or in the sciences, must of necessity 
be few and far between, and in advance of 
their age. Whistler is to me one of these, in 
his absolute and genuine love of his profession, 
for the resolve to win out at any cost, for his 
conquests in various realms of art and the tri- 
umph of ideas they represent. 

I admire his colossal vanity and egotism, 
but, more than all, I admire him for the seri- 
ousness with which he took himself and his 
business of being a painter. It is so rare a 
quality. Velasquez was so much of a solemn 
cavalier that he was almost ashamed of being 
a painter. It offended him to be reminded of 
his profession. It was a serious sport to him, 
but only a sport. He was like Goethe: a dis- 
tinguished and conscientious amateur. Their 
exalted position in life enabled them to treat 
art with such ease and condescension. But 
Whistler had to climb to the very heights 
from which they started, and all the battles 
and victories, struggles and temporary defeats, 


232 The Whistler Book 


magnificent successes and lavish praises were 
the result of his personal efforts. Whistler 
needed, and had the true autolatry of the 
artist; he could conceive genius only under an 
artistic guise; he entertained the absolute 
faith that the faculty of painting is some- 
thing so hugely superior to anything else that 
it confers a sort of sacred character on its 
owner. And it is for this wholesome artistic 
seriousness, this salutary egotism, that I ad- 
mire Whistler, the man. © 


poses. 


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Me 





THE POOL (ETCHING). 





CHAPTER XII 
THE STORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL 


Wouo knew the errant life of the highway, 
of the starlit desert and windy mountain slopes 
better than the story-teller of old, who wan- 
dered from town to village, from camp to 
solitary tent, all over the face of the earth, | 
telling his simple tales to those who cared to 
listen? He was the wayfarer who lived in his 
life the Odyssey of the eternal Wanderer, and 
whose words reflected in quaint imaginative 
excursions the adventures of strange men and 
women he had met in lonely forests and 
crowded city streets. 

Every nomadic tribe, every nation, every 
country, has had its singer of songs, its chanter 
of religious hymns, its troubadour, its vagrom 
poet, some story-teller of the beautiful. They 
have vanished, and the story is now repeated 
by the professional poet and artist. He no 
longer treads the highways and the listeners 
no longer offer him the hospitality of a night’s 
shelter. He lives the life of the large cities; 

233 


234 The Whistler Book 


he hastens from place to place, he mingles with 
the crowd but passes unseen as nobody will 
listen to his stories. More than ever is he the 
vagrom man, unless he tells his story of the 
Beautiful in such a novel, fascinating way that 
Art, “the whimsical goddess,” will open the 
book of life and inscribe his name. Then his 
townspeople, his nation, a whole continent, 
the entire world may claim him. 

Whistler travelled many highways and lo, 
when he arrived at the age of sixty a weary, 
restless wanderer in the realm of art, three 
nations — England, France and America — 
claimed him as their own. 

Born in America, obtaining his education 
partly in America and partly in St. Peters- 
burg, Russia, living the rest of his life in Ku- 
rope, dividing his time almost equally between 
Paris and London, he was a cosmopolitan in 
the true sense of the word, and that is what he 
wished to be considered. He loved England 
and loved France, but he felt quite indifferent 
towards America. In Paris he had spent his 
student years, and he was drawn to this city 
by many bonds of attachments and friendships 
that lasted for life. And it was France who 
gave him that final great recognition of his 
genius when it purchased “The Artist’s 
Mother” portrait for the Luxembourg, and 


The Story of the Beautiful 235 


made him an officer of the Legion of Honour. 
In England, on the other hand, he fought the 
great battles of his life for social as well as 
artistic recognition. In England he married, 
and was for many years one of the most con- 
spicuous characters of London art and social 
life. 

America really did nothing for him, and he 
did nothing for America. He never came back 
to America — during forty-eight years — after 
leaving it as a young man of twenty-one. He 
never exhibited in America until his name as 
a painter was one of the best known in Europe. 
He even preferred to exhibit his work with 
English artists in international exhibitions. 
We all remember the General Hawkins inci- 
dent in 1889. Whistler only became known 
to America after his death through memorial 
exhibitions. 

Now, of course, we like to claim him, and 
do so with ostentation. E:xpatriots are al-_ 
ways claimed by their native country when 
they have achieved success or performed some 
remarkable act that has aroused the wonder 
of nations. Nobody cares whether Mr. Jack 
Johnson lived on the Place Monceau, or died 
on the Riviera. 

To the analytical mind it is of little conse- 
quence whether he will go down in history as 


236 The Whistler Book 


an American, English or Frenchman, as he 
was one of the great artists of the mineteenth 
century with an international significance. In 
the case of artists like Burne-Jones, Israels, 
‘Boldin, Fortuny, Lenbach, Segantini, it may 
be of more importance, as they are local talents. 

Whistler’s predilections were natural. He 
was too shrewd a promoter of his own artistic 
welfare not to make the best of this dispute of 
nations. He could not have prevented it any- 
how, and the question of his nationality will be 
disputed for many years to come. Of course, 
one can simply settle the matter by saying that 
as he was born in America of American 
parents, he is an American. 

The English differ; they choose to do in 
this case what we have always done with our 
immigrants. After a person has lived for any 
length of time in the country we make him a 
citizen and consider him an American. How 
about Carl Schurz, General Siegel and Roeb- 
ling, the bridge builder? They were all born 
abroad and yet their names are inscribed on our 
roll of honour. Of what nationality was Lafca- 
dio Hearn, who, born on the Ionian Islands, 
of Irish and Greek parentage, living for years 
in New Orleans and New York, finally selected 
Japan as the country of his choice, where he 
lived the remainder of his life and was buried? 


The Story of the Beautiful PRY 


And yet we class him as an American writer. 
It seems that the party most concerned in it; 
the personality itself, should decide the ques- 
tion. Hearn wished to be considered a Japa- 
nese. We are not quite sure what Whistler’s 
opinion was on the matter. He claimed to be 
a cosmopolitan. But that is no answer, as it 
does not settle the dispute. It leaves others 
to settle it, and the trouble starts anew. 

There is another much subtler point, open 
to argument. Is his art in any sense Ameri- 
can? Has it a flavour, a peculiarity of its own, 
that could be derived from any source except 
that of American birth and parentage? To 
this question I answer emphatically yes. True 
enough his subject matter was, with the excep- 
tion of “ L’Américaine ” and a few portraits, 
strictly Continental. But the spirit was strictly 
Japanese and— American. Or, I would 
rather say, his form of art conception was 
Oriental, but the essence, the under-rhythm of 
his personality, was after all American. He 
was somewhat of a snob and a precieug, like 
his friend Comte Montesquiou. He had all 
the polished manners, the spirit, the grace of 
a foreign aristocrat and yet he was neither a 
Frenchman nor an Englishman in his habits 
or views on art. He remained an alien, as any 
man in a foreign climate must remain to some 


238 The Whistler Book 


extent, when the change of domicile is made as 
late as the twentieth year. 

His wit and sarcasm was American. It was 
not pointless, neither brusque nor frivolous but 
it was at times flat like Mark Twain’s. His 
self-exploitation revealed the shrewdness of an 
intellectual Barnum. His attitude in society 
was that of a “ Yankee at King Arthur’s 
Court.” Besides there are vague traits in his 
art which reveal the premises of his origin. 
His women, “The Fur Jacket,” “ Lady 
Archibald Campbell,” “L’Ameéricaine,” and 
“Miss Alexander,” have a natural finesse, 
direct grace and elegant frailty that can be 
found nowhere but in America. His power 
of adaptability, his disregard for ancient cul- 
ture for modern purposes, his technical fanat- 
icism, his adventurous tastes and theories, all 
have an American physiognomy. If there is 
anything that will make him an American it 
is the aptitude for labour, free association, and 
practical adaptation. 

That he left America never to return again 
is no compliment to our country, but he, no 
doubt, acted wisely. If we remember the sad 
unsuccessful lives of Whitman and Poe, we 
shun to think what might have become of 
Whistler had he stayed on these shores. He, 
no doubt, would have become one of our best 





‘¢ 7’AMERICAINE.” 


ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE 





The Story of the Beautiful 239 


painters, but he would never have become the 
Whistler we know to-day. 

Like all our painters of merit, Fuller, Ab- 
bott Thayer, Winslow Homer, Homer Mar- 
tin, to mention but a few, he would have re- 
tired into solitude, he would have become a 
hermit at a much earlier stage in his career. 
In England it was revolt, fight and victory; 
here it would have been stagnation. There 
would have been no fight because there would 
have been nobody to fight with. 

When a man is young, he is strong because 
he is impulsive and because he has absolute 
faith in his beliefs. As he grows older his 
views broaden, he is not quite as certain of him- 
self, and there will come a time when he will 
vacillate from one point to another, trying his 
faculties in different directions and searching 
for the final path on which his inborn talent 
may blossom forth in fullest strength and 
beauty. This is the time when a man needs 
encouragement, some patron no matter how 
stingy, some order no matter how humble, 
some friends and supporters who champion his 
cause — or he will succumb. He may not give 
up the battle, but his development will be 
marred and retarded for years. 

American life is not particularly kind to 
budding geniuses, either in the period of revolt 


240 The Whistler Book 








or of later evolution. There is no gainsaying 
we are a very material race Just now. And it 
is nowise peculiar that it should be so. We do 
not expect much from Australia and Canada 
in the way of art. Why should we of the 
United States, where there are vast territories 
in very much the same primitive condition as 
in other emigrant countries? Of course there 
are certain parts and centres in this country ~ 
which can boast of a culture dating back a few 
centuries, but the population has always lived 
in turmoil and conflict. Self-assertion and 
self-improvement are the ideals of any man 
who has changed his domicile, in the one hope 
to better his material welfare. In a country 
which is so vast as ours and which has at times 
an increase of ten thousand aliens a week, the 
national pride in intellectual accomplishments 
cannot run high. 

All that wealth can do is done at present. 
We have numerous private collections of rare 
excellence and will have National Galleries 
and Kensington Museums in due time, but, as 
Whistler has said, art is not a matter of edu- 
cation, or of royal, civic or municipal encour- 
agement. It is a growth and the soil must be 
ripe for it. No doubt, in due time collectors 
will divert some of their attention from the 
battered relics of past ages to the quite as 


The Story of the Beautiful 241 


admirable productions of their contempora- 
ries. It would be pleasant to find that people 
' cease the worship of dubious pictures by Old 
Masters as the one certain and infallible proof 
of enlightment. 

The artist of to-day has to subsist on the 
Spartan principle; he has either to do or to 
die. ‘These are no stimulants to inspiration. 
He has to dig it all out of himself. That en- 
genders martyrdom. And very few, particu- 
larly those equipped with lesser talent, are 
willing to give up a half-way respectable ex- 
istence for a life in a garret and a long wait 
until fame knocks at the door. Nearly all the 
great European artists had their struggle and 
lived in hovels. The American is less willing 
to enter upon such a precarious existence, as he 
realizes that if he accepts it, he may have to 
stay in a garret until the end of his life. Amer- 
ican artists do not assist each other. Each goes 
his own way, partly under the stress of condi- 
tions, because the vastness of the country and 
larger towns permits no closer association; and 
partly by choice, by personal inclination or pro- 
fessional reasons. There is but little intellect- 
ual intercourse. The atmospheric conditions 
are just as beautiful here as anywhere. And 
so are the subjects equally beautiful and plenti- 
ful. It would be ridiculous to deny it. Yet 


242 The Whistler Book 


it takes courage.to be a pioneer. It needs lei- 
sure, some incentive and sympathy. No man 
is inexhaustible. He needs some encourage- 
ment from outside; and if it fails to come he 
will grow indifferent. He may open up a res- 
taurant, or become an illustrator on a comic 
paper. Deserters of this kind may not rep- 
resent an irreparable loss, as they were never 
ensign-bearers, nor ever stood in the firing line. 


“They were not carved as from iron or wood, 
Cut with an axe, or hammered with sledge, 
Till the man shows strong and good.” 


as Daniel Dawson sang, another young poet 
who fell by the wayside. 

Our conditions are not conducive to the evo- 
lution and exploitation of a genius. Graft and 
prohibition laws, whose evil influences are felt 
in all strata of society, also injure artistic prog- 
ress, if not directly, surely by the stress of pub- 
lic opinion. Such conditions would no doubt 
have retarded the progress of even a man like 
Whistler for years. If a man has not the 
means to sip his demi-tasse at Florian’s, in 
Venice on the piazza, he can not make any 
etchings or lithographs of the Campanile. 
And if a man cannot afford to buy plates and 
an etching press he cannot make any etchings 


The Story of the Beautiful 243 


at all. And that is the fate of hundreds of 
artists in our larger cities. 

No, to go to Paris and then to find another 
congenial abode in Europe, to settle there, to 
live his own life, and to do in art what he 
wanted to do was the wisest move Whistler 
ever made. It helped him to expand and to 
mature the great talent that was slumbering 
within him, ever since he stared, lost in won- 
der, at the Velasquez of the Hermitage at St. 
Petersburg. — 

Whistler admired the Greek as much as 
anybody, but this emotional reverence did not 
hinder him from smashing some traditions 
of ancient beauty to pieces. Greek art was 
so perfect that for centuries no artist could 
escape its influence. All the Old Masters 
were nursed on the marble breasts of Gre- 
cian goddesses. In all art schools the white 
corpses of plaster cast facsimiles were wor- 
shipped on bended knee. ‘The pupils never 
dared to glance about. They did not see the 
beauty of the world around them. ‘They could 
perceive it only through Greek conventions. 
This had to cease. There was no life blood 
in these artificial constructions. But tradition 
was so deeply ingrained in’ Western esthet- 
icisms that it lingered on for centuries, until 
Manet entered the studio, opened the windows, 


244 The Whistler Book 


let in the light, and Monet took the young 
students by the arm, pushed them into the open 
air and led them to the meadows and riverside, 
and the open road. 

Whistler, in the meanwhile, had scoured the 
whole horizon of art, and beheld a new dawn 
in the East. There he saw an old civilization, 
as deep and broad as ours. It was just at a 
stage when modern materialism had begun to 
wash out some of its finest colours. Art was 
deteriorating in the East under the stress of 
missionaries and merchants. An era of manu- 
facture had set in. Could not the noble, un- 
selfish spirit of old Japan be kept alive, re- 
vived, — amalgamated with our art, and be 
made to pour new life into our valiant dreams 
of beauty! 

You remember what Whistler said of the 
primitive artist. The words are worth repeat- 
ing: 

“In the beginning, man went forth each 
day — some to do battle, some to the chase, 
others, again, to dig and delve in the fields — 
all that they might gain and live, or lose and 
die. Until there was found among them one, 
differing from the rest, whose pursuits at- 
tracted him not, and so he stayed by the tents 
with the women, and traced strange devices 
with a burnt stick upon a gourd. 


The Story of the Beautiful 245 


“This man, who took not joy in the ways 
of his brethren — who cared not for conquest, 
and fretted in the field —this designer of. 
quaint patterns — this deviser of the beautiful, 
who perceived in Nature about him curious 
curvings, as faces are seen in the fire, this 
dreamer.apart, was the first artist. 

“And when, from the field from afar, there 
came back the people, they took the gourd — 
and drank from out of it. 

“ And presently there came to this man an- 
other — and in time others — of like nature, 
chosen by the Gods — and so they worked to- 
gether and soon they fashioned from the mois- 
tened earth forms resembling the gourd. And 
with the power of creation, the heirloom of the 
artist, presently they went forth beyond the 
slovenly suggestion of Nature, and the first 
vase was born, in beautiful proportions. 

“And the toilers tilled and were athirst; 
and the heroes returned from fresh victories, 
to rejoice and to feast; and all drank alike 
from the artist’s goblets, fashioned cunningly, | 
taking no note the while of the craftsman’s 
pride, and understanding not his glory in his 
work; drinking at the cup, not from choice, 
not from a consciousness that it was beauti- 
ful, but because, forsooth, there was none 
other.” | 


246 The Whistler Book 


The art of the past has done its work. The 
white gods are worshipped no longer in the 
sacred woods and the Old Masters have lost 
much of their spiritual glamour. But no need 
to mourn their loss, they will remain beautiful. 
We will always look with awe and wonder at 
the figures of the Parthenon frieze. We will 
never cease to love the Primitifs. We will 
continue to make pilgrimages to the Prado and 
the Sistine Chapel. And Rembrandt will as 
heretofore receive the adoration of mankind. 

Yet the new art will be different. It has to 
be different to equal the old. It will be at- 
tuned to the moods of the modern mind. It 
will have new accents. It will bear the ana- 
lytical and complex aspects of our time. It 
will be subtler, more fragile, perhaps, but it 
will drive deeper into our soul than the cold 
correctness of older forms and emblems. 

It was Whistler who pointed out that a large 
picture is a contradiction, that a picture like 
Raphael’s “ Transfiguration” or Veronese’s 
* Marriage of Cana” are merely combinations 
of smaller pictures, drearily linked together by 
stretches of negligible paint. The demands of 
explanation, of form and composition, drag in, 
every now and then, lines and colour notes 
which are merely padding. They are the 
painter’s concessions to the old rules of com- 





THE FIDDLER (ETCHING). 





The Story of the Beautiful 247 


plexity. ‘The modern mind demands a con- 
centrated vision. Painting must appeal again 
directly to our finer sensibilities, speak to us 
without interference of moral or literary con- 
siderations. 

It was Whistler who taught that painting 
was a science of colour manipulation. That 
the first requisite of a painter is to know how 
to paint. Everybody can learn how to draw 
and how to handle a brush. To explore the 
secrets of colour, to discern their influences 
upon each other, to render them atmospheric 
and musical, that alone is of vital importance. 
For painting should be a visual language that 
speaks directly and distinctly to the cultured 
mind. How many of the younger American 
painters (alas, our younger men have all 
passed the threshold of thirty if not of forty) 
really know their metier? Henri, Reid, Luks, 
Tarbell, Hawthorne, Clews, R. E. Miller, Lu- 
cas, who else? That is why Whistler’s art is so 
exceptional and masterful. There may be other 
methods just as good as his; Monticelli, Maris, 
Mancini, Segantini, Renoir, Cézanne, etc., all 
have their peculiar way, but I believe that 
Whistler got nearest to the pulse beat of our 
age. Resolutely and tranquil, he carried an 
idea to its utmost logical conclusion, after once 
accepting its particular point of view. And 


248 The Whistler Book 


that is why everything he did bears an unmis- 
takable stamp of his own. 

It was Whistler who proved that art was 
synonymous with hard work. Few painters 
will follow his example and spend a whole day 
trying to put in a high-light or to find the right 
place for a butterfly’s wing, and go home at 
night satisfied with having made a few brush- 
strokes after altering them a hundred times, 
but these commercial travellers of art will 
never know the painter’s pure delight, the con- 
templation of life, the aspiration to perfection, 
the lifting of beauty out of the dead pigment. 
Such worship of art, such absolute disinterest- 
edness, such fidelity to painting cannot be too 
highly esteemed. 

And it was Whistler who proclaimed that 
art cannot be taught but must be an inborn 
gift, that everything can be acquired by long 
practice save that one supernatural quality of 
genius which alone can transform a painter 
into a great artist. What is there in these pic- 
tures produced every year, here and in Paris 
and everywhere? Portraits, landscapes, ordi- 
nary delineations of prosaic scenes that may 
be painted with considerable skill and that may 
look pretty enough, but that are absolutely in- 
capable of evoking a fine and subtle emotion. 
This, the men upon whose shoulders the black 


“HONdINUA VASHUHLLVA GIO ‘YaHATIS GNV NMOU NI ANYALOON 








The Story of the Beautiful 249 


mantle of Whistler’s muse may fall, must real- 
ize, that it is a vain endeavour — as futile as 
cloud shadows on a summer day — unless they 
know that they can hold her, “ the capricious 
jade,” as they possess the magic wand to call 
her. 

This was the spirit in which Whistler con- 
ceived art. It had long faded out of Euro- 
pean art. It was rapidly deteriorating in the 
Orient. Why could not a single man, even 
with the whole world against him, live up to 
some big ideal! ‘To be an artist simply for 
one’s own gratification. To fashion something 
beautiful simply because one feels like doing it. 
To purify one’s mind by projecting into life 
what is accumulated there by some curious 
grace of nature. Whistler undertook the task, 
and created a new art form that may be des- 
tined to rule art for the next thousand years. 

A new art form is always the expression of 
a new spirit. In painting the new spirit is 
rebellious. In addition it is emphatically indi- 
vidualistic. It is opposed to previous schools 
and academic training. It aims at attaining 
the maximum of personal intensity. The exi- 
gencies of the classic style — the necessity of 
a literary subject — at once stay the free use 
of the brush and hamper the virile expression 
of technique. Why not give to art a new 


Pas | peace The Whistler Book 








twist, graft upon it a new beauty, enliven it 
with a purer flame, that it may shine forth 
again in its old pristine beauty! 

The Western mind still rebels that this res- 
urrection should.come from the Kast, through 
another race. Even the most ardent disciples 
of Whistler make little of the Japanese influ- 
ence. It is still a question of conquest. In 
my mind, as in that of many of our foremost 
artists, there is not the slightest doubt that 
the Eastern idea will win out and that a new 
era, as important as that of Greek influence, 
will set in. The meaning of the old symbols 
has faded and it is the artist’s duty to create 
new ones. 3 

Whistler disclosed new harmonies of tone, 
of arrangement, and visual poetry, all of them 
sensitive and expressive, using blacks and 
browns and a touch of vivid colour or a flare 
of white, and thereby succeeded in stirring the 
depth of our nature. His art has a tender 
pallor, tones purposely deadened, faded tints 
like those on Japanese screens of old feudal 
castles, of a wondrous harmony and softness. 
Details, discreetly accentuated, allow the en- 
semble to retain its full importance, and against 
dark background, in soft neutral tints, figures 
that the painter desires to bring out show with 
an illusion of life truly magical. Herein con- 


The Story of the Beautiful 251 


sists the last great pictorial invention; it is 
through this that painting still has the faculty 
to powerfully address the modern mind. 

He said in his “Ten O’Clock” that the 
story of the beautiful was complete. He 
surely, like Monet, has added a valuable chap- 
ter. He, in his own words, was “ one of the 
chosen — with the mark of the gods upon 
him — who had to continue what had gone 
before.” 


THE END. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Bacuer, Orto H.: “ With Whistler in Venice.’”? New 
York, 1908. 

Bei, ArtHur G. and Nancy: “J. McNeill Whistler 
and his Work.’ New York, 1904. 

Brut, Nancy E. (Mrs. Arthur Bell): ‘“‘ James Mc- 
Neill Whistler.” London and New York, 1904. 
(Miniatures Series of Painters.) 

Britt, Nancy E.: ‘“ Representative Painters of the 
XIX Century.’ London, 1899. 

BENEDITE, Lronce: “ L’ceuvre de J. McNeill Whis- 
tler reunis a Vloccasion de l exposition com- 
memorative.” Paris, 1905. 

Benepire, Lionce: “ Exposition des ceuvres de J. 
MeNeill Whistler.” Introduction by Léonce Bené- 
dite. Palais de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Paris, 
May, 1905. 

Bowpo1n, W. G.: “ James McNeill Whistler.” Lon- 
don, 1901, New York, 1902. 

Bowporn, W. G.: “ James McNeill Whistler.” Lon- 
don and New York, 1904. 

BRINTON, CuristTiaAN: “ Modern Artists.” New York, 
1908. 

Carrin, Cuas. H.: ‘“ American Masters of Painting.” 


New York, 1902. 
253 


254 Bibliography 
Carrin, Cuas. H.: ‘ The Story of American Paint- 
ing.” New York, 1907. 


Cary, Exizapetu L.: ‘The Works of J. McNeill 
Whistler.”” New York, 1907. 


CHESTERTON, G. K.: “ Heretics.” London, 1905. 


Cuitp, THEODORE: ‘“‘ American Artists at the Paris 
Exposition,” “‘ Art and Criticism.” New York, 
1892. 

Cuitp, THEroporre: “A Pre-Raphaelite Mansion,” 


‘ Art and Criticism.”’ New York, 1892. 


CopLey Society or Boston: ‘ Memorial Exhibition 
of Works of J. McNeill Whistler. February, 
1904.” 


Cox, Kenyon: ‘ Old Masters and New.” New York, 
1903. 


Dennis, G. R.: ‘ Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and 
Engravers.”’ London, 1905. 


Duret, THEODORE: “ Histoire de J. McNeill Whistler 
et de son ceuvre.”’ Paris, 1904. 

Duret, THEODORE: “ Critique d’avant-garde.” Paris, 
1885. 


Eppy, ArTtHUR JEROME: “ Recollections and Impres- 
sions of J. McNeill Whistler.”” London, 1903. 


ForsyTHE, WALTER GREENWOOD, Harrison and 
JoserpH Leroy, Ep.: “ Guide to the Study of 
James McNeill Whistler.” Albany, 1895 (Uni- 
versity of the State of New York). 


Bibliography 255 


GALLATIN, ALBERT E.: ‘“‘ Whistler, Notes and Foot- 
notes and other Memoranda.”” New York, 1907. 


GoopsPEED, CHARLES E.: “ Whistler Art Dicta and 
Other Essays.” Boston, 1904. 

Gouri AND Co.: “ Portfolio of Twenty-four Repro- 
ductions.” 1898. 


GroLigeR Cius, New York: ‘ The Etched Works of 
Whistler,” Compiled by Edward G. Kennedy, 
introduction by Royal Coutissoz. 1910. 


HoxuurnewortH, C. J. H.: “The Peacock Room.” 
Obach Galleries. London, 1904. 


HARTMANN, Sapaxicut: “A History of American 
Art,” Vol. 2. Boston, 1902. 


HvusBarpD, Evpert: “ Whistler.’ East Aurora, N. Y., 
1903 (Little Journey Series). 


b 


Huysman, J. K.: ‘“ Certains.” (G. Moreau, Degas, 
Cheret, Whistler, Rops, etc.) Paris, 1889. 

INTERNATIONAL Soctety oF Scutprors, PAINTERS 
AND ENGRAVERS: “ Memorial Exhibitions of the 
Works of the Late J. McNeill Whistler.”” London, 
Feb. 22nd to April 15th, 1905. 

IsHam, SamuEL: “The History of American Paint- 
ing.” New York, 1905. 

Knoor, Tuomas: “James McNeill Whistler,” 
Zehnuhr Vorlesung. Strassburg, 1904. 

KoErHLER, SYLVESTER Rosa: “ Etching.” New York, 
1885. 

Levy, Fuorence: “ Whistler Catalogue.” Metro- 
politan Museum, N. Y., 1910. 


256 Bibliography 


McFatut, Hatpane: “ Whistler: Butterfly, Wasp, 
Wit, Masters of Arts, Enigma.” Boston, 1907. 

McFatzt, Haupanr: “ Whistler.” Boston, 1906 
(Spirit of Age Series). 

MansFIELD, Howarp: “A Descriptive Catalogue of 
the etchings and drypoints of James Abbott 
McNeill Whistler.”” Chicago, Caxton Club, 1909. 

Mavcuarr, C.: ‘De Watteau 4 Whistler.” Paris, 
1905. 

MacCout, DonaLpD STEWERT: “Nineteenth Century 
Art: James McNeill Whistler.” Glasgow, 1902. 


McSpappEN, J. WALKER: “Famous Painters of 
America.” New York, 1907. _ 
Menpes, Mortimer: ‘ Whistler As I Knew Him.” 


London, 1904. 

Moorr, Grorce: “ Modern Painting.” London, 
1898. 

Mutuer, Ricnarp: “ A History of Modern Painters.” 
London, New York, 1907. 

Pattison, JAMES WitiiamM: “Painters since Leo- 
nardo.”” Chicago, 1904. 

PENNELL, E. R. and J.: ‘“‘ The Life of J. McNeill 
Whistler.” London, 1908. 

Rossetti, Winrt1amM Micuarn: “ Fine Arts, Chiefly 
Contemporary,” Vol. 3. New York, 1896. 

SinarER, Hans W.: “ James McNeill Whistler.” Ber- 
lin, 1904, London, 1908 (Langham Series). 

Stupio: ‘* Whistler Portfolio.” London, 1905. 


Bibliography 257 


Symons, ARTHUR: ‘Studies in Seven Arts.” New 
York, 1906. 


Ratpu, THomas: “Catalogue of etchings and dry- 
points of J. McNeill Whistler.” London, 1874. 


TuckerMAN, H. T.: “ Book of Artists.”” New York, 
1867. 


Victoria and Atpert Museum: “ The Etchings of 
J. McNeill Whistler.”” (Catalogue.) London, 1905. 

VosE, Grorce L.: “Sketch of the Life of George 
Washington Whistler, Civil Engineer.”’ Boston, 
1887. 

Way, Tuomas R.: “ Whistler’s Lithographs.” Lon- 
don, 1896. 
Way, R., and Dennis, G. R.: “ The Art of J. McN. 
Whistler: An Appreciation.”’ London, 1903. 
Wepmork, Freperick: ‘“ Whistler’s Etching; A 
Study and A Catalogue.” London, 1886. 

Wepmore, Freprerick: “A Note on Etchings by 
Whistler, Exhibited at the Galleries of Obach 
and Co.” London, 1903. 


Wepmore, Freperick: “Four Masters of Etching 
(Whistler, Legros, Seymour Haden and Jacque- 
mart).” London, 1883-89. 


Wepmorg, Freperick: “ Whistler and Others ” (24 
Essays). London and New York, 1906. 


WaistterR, J. McN.: “Eden v. Whistler,” “The 
Baronet and the Butterfly,” “‘ A Valentine with 
a Verdict.” Paris, 1899. 


258 Bibliography 

a 

Wuistter, J. McN.: “The Gentle Art of Making 
Enemies.” London, 1890. New edition, 1892, 
includes Whistler’s “‘ Ten O’Clock.” 


WHisTLER v. Ruskin: “ The Painter Etcher Papers 
and the Nocturnes, Marines and Chevalet 
Pieces.” 


WuistterR v. Ruskin: ‘‘ Nocturnes, Marines and 
Chevalet Pieces.” London, 1892. 

WuisTLER v. Ruskin: “ Paddon papers, or the Owl 
and the Cabinet.” London, 1882. 

Wuistier v. Ruskin: “ Piker Papers.” 

WHISTLER v. Ruskin: “ Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’Clock.” 
London, 1888. 

WHISTLER v. Ruskin: ‘“ Art and Art Critics,” “The 
White House.” Chelsea, London, December, 
1878. 

WHISTLER v. Ruskin: “ Whistler Album ” (20 photo- 
graphs). Paris, 1892. 

WHISTLER v. Ruskin: “ Wilde v. Whistler: being Acri- 
monious Correspondence.” London, 1896. 


PRINCIPAL MAGAZINE ARTICLES 


Alden, W.S. . . . . Saturday Review . . Aug. 1903. 
Alexandre, Arséne. . LesArts ...... Sept. 1903. 
American Architect . Nov. 1887. 
Art Journal . . . . v.49, p. 10. 
Art Journal... ... v. 52, p. 198. 
Art Journal . .. . v.49, p. 298. 
Bacher, Otto . . . . Century Magazine . 1902, p. 100-111. 
OS Cee ae Pe The Studio .. . . Sept. 1903. 
OSS Bi ee ea American Architect . v. 81, p. 91. 
Beerbohm, Max. . . Metropolitan. . . . 1904, p. 728-733. 
Beerbohm, Max. . . Saturday Review . . Nov. 1897. 
Bénédite, Léonce . . Gazette des beaux-arts 1905, p. 33-34. 
erent ees . Critic... 2. Se 1903. 
Peron a rietinn.. §. Critic ... 9... 5. . 1902. 
Brinton, Christian . . Munsey’s Magazine . 1906. 
Brownell, W.C.. . . Scribner’s Magazine . Aug. 1879. 
Boughton, G.H. . . International Studio. 1904, p. 210-218. 
Caffin, Charles H. . . International Studio 1903, v. 20. 
Coburn, Fred. W. . . Brush and Pencil . . 1904, v.13. 
Cortissoz, Royal . . Atlantic Monthly . 1903, v. 92, pp. 
826-838. 
Cox, Kenyon . . . . Nation Magazine . . 1904 v. 78. 
Crawford, Earl Stetson The Reader ... . 1903, v. 2, pp. 
387-390. 
Current Literature . Sept. 1903. 
Dempsey, Charles W. Magazineof Art . . 1882, p. 358. 


Dempsey, Charles W. McClure’s Magazine . v. 7, p. 374. 
Dodgson, Campbell . Graphische Kiinste . 1904. 


Dowdeswell, W.. . . American Architect . v. 22, p. 258. 
Dreyfus, Albert . . . Kunst fiir Alle . . . 1907. 
Eclectic Magazine . 1903, v. 10, pp. 
556-558. 


259 


260 Principal Magazine Articles 





Fenellosa, Ernest F. . 
. Atheneum Magazine 1902-3. 

. Gazette des beaux-arts 19038, v. 30. 
. Gazette des beaux-arts June, 1884. 


Finberg, A. J. 


Fortuny, Pascal. . 
Foureaud, L.de. . 


Geffroy, Gustave 


Hadley, Frank H. . 


Hartmann, Sadakichi 
Hawthorne, Julian 


Hubbard, Elbert 


Jenney, W. L. B. 


Jackson, Louise W. 


Kelley, G. 


Kessler, Harry G. . 
Knaufft, Ernest . . 
Knaufft, Ernest . . 


Kobbé, Gustave 


Levin, Julius . . . 


Losee, William F. . 


Ludovici, A. 


Macfall, H. . 


Mather, Frank, Jr. 


Matsuki, Bunkio 


Mauclair, Camille . 


Mans, Octave . 


Meier-Graefe, Julius 


Menpes, Dorothy 


Menpes, Mortimer . 


McColl, D.8. . . 


McColl, D. 8. .-. 


Meynell, Wilfred 


. . . . 


. Pall Mall Magazine 


Lotus Magazine . 1903. 


. Revue Universelle . Sept. 1903. 

. Brush and Pencil . . 1908, v. 12. 
Harper’s Weekly . . Aug. 1903. 
Wilson’s Magazine . Apr. 1910. 


. Independent Magazine Nov. 1899. 
. Idler Magazine . . 


. 1903, v. 23. 
International Studio 1905, v. 25. 


. American Architect . v. 59, p. 4. 


. Brush and Pencil . 1908. 
Weston’s Magazine . v. 130. 
. Kunst und Ktinstler . 1905. 


. Churchman Magazine 1903. 
. Review of Reviews 
. The Chap Book~ . 


VR 2S Does 
. 1898. 
Kunst und Kiinstler . 1905. 
Kunst und Kiinstler . 1908. 


. Illustrirte Zeitung . 1903. 
Living Age . 1905, v.28 (v. 246). 

. Brush and Pencil . . 1903, v. 12. 

. . Art Journal . 1906, v. 68. 

Masters in Art . . . 1907, v. 8. 

. Academy. = agi v. 66, p. 633. 

. World’s Work . 1903. 

. Lotus Magazine . 1903. 


. Rev. Polit. and Litter. 1903, v. 20. 


. International Studio 1904, v. 23. 

. Die Zukunft . . 1903. 

. International Studio 1904, v 20, pp. 
245-257. 

. Cornhill Magazine . 1903, v. 15. 

. Art Journal ». Vio pico 

. Saturday Review . . v. 13, p. 357. 


. 1903, v. 31. 








Principal Magazine Articles 261 
Morton, Fred. W. . . Brush and Pencil . . 1908, v. 12. 
Mulliken, Mary A.. . International Studio 1905, v. 25. 
Muster, John de . Elseviers Geillust . . 1907, v. 33. 

The Nation . 1908, pp. 149-151. 
Patini, Rinaldo . . . Nuova antologia . 1909, v. 140. 
Pennell, Joseph . . . Burlington Magazine 1903, v. 3. 
Meaney Joseph... . Nation ....... v. 54, p. 280. 
Pennell, Joseph . . . North American Re- 
view . ae LOU Vel Lee 


Pennington, Harper . 
Pennington, Harper . 
. Magazine of Art 

. Chamber’s Magazine 


Princep, Val 
Quilter, Harry 


Rosenhagen, Hans 


Scott, William 


Sickert, Bernhard . . 
Sickert, Oswald. . . 
Sickert, Oswald . . . 
Sickert, Walker... 


Sketchley, R. HE. D. 
Smalley, Phoebe J. 
Spielmann, M. H. . 


Swinburne, A. C. 
Swinburne, A.C. . 
Teall, Gardner C. 
Thompson, D. 
Wedmore, Fred. 


Way, Thomas R. 


Weaerpe,G: H.-. .. 
WIBOM eta 6. ys 


. . Fortnightly Review . 
. Ecclesiastic Magazine v. 111, p. 154. 
. The Bookman 


Scribner’s Magazine _ v. 21, p. 277. 
International Quar’ly 1904, v. 10, No.1. 
Metropolitan Magazine 1910, pp. 769-776. 
. 1903. 

1903, v. 66. 
Revista Latino Ameri- 


CAND ener ea, E156 1903, v. 1. 

. Nord und Siid . 1909, v. 130. 
Saturday Review . . v. 3 p. 208. 

. International Studio 19038, pp. 97-107. 
Burlington Magazine 1905, v. 6. 
International Studio 1903, v. 21. 
Kunst und Kiinstler . 1903, v. 1. 
Fortnightly Review . v. 54, p. 243. 

. Kunst und Kunstler 1906, v. 4. 


Pee aI) Fs, Pinel ot Vid, p: LLO 
. Magazine of Art 


. . Nov. 1903, pp. 69- 
70. 
v. 49, p. 745. 


. 1903, pp. 265-268. 


. Art Journal . » L908 ve 50; 
Academy ~~. 29.0... v. 23, p. 134. 

. 19th CenturyMagazine 1904, v. 21. 
Knowledge bala. Vee oe 

. International Studio 1903. 
Independent . . . . v. 56, p. 1381. 
Book Buyer EONS pa uke 


PRINCIPAL PAINTINGS* 


La Fumette 052400 ae ees a ee p. 1859. 
Self-portrait... .. (S. P. Avery, Esq.) . . p. 1859. 
La Mére Gérard... io okt ee p. 1859. 
The Music Room. .. . (Frank J. Hecker, Esq.) p. 1860. 


The Woman in White . (J. H. Whittemore, Esq.) p. 1863 e. 1863. 
Lange Leizen of Six 

Marks: In Purple and 

Rose, 65.0 ose sae ee (John G. Johnson, Esq.) p. 1864 e. 1864. 
Harmony in Purple and 

Gold: The Golden 

SOreen 3s ake Cae ', (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) p. 1864 e. 1865. 
Symphony in White IT: 

The Little White Girl (Arthur Studd, Esq.) . p. and e. 1864. 
Symphony in White III (E. Davis, Esq.) ... . 


At the Piano . . . . (H. Davis, Esq.) . . . p.18596:1867, 
La Princesse du Pays 
de la Porcelaine . . (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) . p.1864e.1865. 


On the Balcony: Har- 
mony in Flesh Colour 


and Green... . . (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) . e. 1866. 
Self-portrait. |e (George McCullough, Esq.) p. 1867. 
Arrangement in Black: (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) ¢. 1873 

F. R. Leyland. 

Arrangement in Brown 
and. Gold acti aaes. (J. J. Cowan, Esq.) . . 


*p. indicates when picture was painted, or started, as it 
sometimes took Whistler more than ten years to finish a picture; 
e. indicates when first exhibited. Dates and ownership are 
omitted whenever author failed to verify facts. 


262 


Principal Paintings 263 








Woman inGray . . .. (Riks Museum, Amster- 
dam) 
Lady in Gray . . . . (Metropolitan Museum, 
New York) 


L’Andalusienne . . . (John H. Whittemore, Esq.) 
p. about 1894. 

Arrangement in Black 

and Brown: Miss 

Rose Corder ... (R.A.Canfield, Esq.) . p.1876e.1881. 
The Peacock Room . . (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) 1876. 
Arrangement in Black 

and Brown: The Fur 


Jacket . . . . . (William Burrell, Esq.) p. 1876. 
EC re ye ea ee p. 1876 e. 1878. 
Florence Leyland . . (Brooklyn Institute, 
New York). .... p. 1876 e. 1878. 


Arrangement in Gray 
and Black: Thomas (City Art Galleries, Glas- 


MINT ih. Ss POW Pt Ras og oe oth. p. 1872 e. 1877. 
Sir Henry Irving as 
UN ML 2 es ee AS ae ae e. 1877. 


Arrangement in Gray 

and Black: The Ar- 

tist’s Mother .. . (Luxembourg Gallery) p.1871le. 1881. 
Arrangement in Gray 

and Green: Miss 


Alexander ... . (W. C. Alexander, Esq.) p.1872e.1881. 
Arrangement in Black 
Beta Gite: iady Meux. 5 ot. we ee ee p. 1877 e. 1884. 
Harmony in Pink and 
Reever rey Moue Ss ew) oh a ts e. 1882. 
ES RSS 1 ele re ements e. 1883. 
Arrangement in Black: 
Lady Archibald Camp- 
PMG cre, 5’, ee Gallery, Phila.) e. 1883. 


RETAIL cys a! gx ep iw cu, we a eo p. 1877 e. 1884. 


264 Principal Paintings 


Arrangement in Black: 


Mme. Casgatt. 0.05. 0 a ee e. 1855. 
Arrangement in Black: (Carnegie Art Institute, 

Pablo Sarasate .. Pittsburg, Pa.) . . . p.1884e.1886. 
Harmony in_ Ivory: 

Lady Colin Campbell..." 39%) © a eee e. 1866. 


Arrangement in Violet 

and Rose: Mme. 

Walter Sickert)... 0. oo. 
Arrangement in Black 

and Gold: Comte de 


Montesquiou ... (R.A. Canfield, Esq.) e. 1891. 
The Master Smith of 

Lyme Regis . . . . (Boston Museum) . . e. 1895. 
Little Rose of Lyme 

Regis ee AR (Boston Museum). . . e. 1895. 


Full length Self-portrait (G. W. Vanderbilt, Esq.) e. 1900. 


NOCTURNES 


The majorityof Nocturnes were painted during the years 1866-1884. 


Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valpa- 
PCD Se Sl Gee 9 Cheer . - p. 1866 e. 1871. (Chas.W. 
Freer, Esq.) 
Symphony in Gray and Green: The 


LTD i as rr p.1871. (R. A. Canfield, 
Esq.) 
Crepuscule in Flesh Color and Green: 
Valparaiso... yet ae 
Nocturne in Blue “ae ifort Batter- p.1877. (Chas. W. Freer, 
0 REN 0 Rs 0 be . Esq.) 


Nocturne in Blue and Silver ... p. 1877. 
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Bat- 
EE TILE ey oe ok we es (Tate Gallery, London.) 
Nocturne: Trafalgar Square, Snow. 
Nocturne in Blue and Silver: Bognor. (Chas. W. Freer, Esq.) 
Nocturne in Opal and Silver: The 
Music Room. 
Nocturne in Gray and Gold: Chelsea, 
Snow. 
Nocturne in Gray and Gold: West- 
minster Bridge. 
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: South- 
SUSE SEP ei (Art Institute, Chicago.) 
Nocturne in Brown and Silver: Old 
Battersea Bridge. 
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: St. 
Mark’s, Venice. 
Pink and Gray: Chelsea ..... (Lord Battersea). 


266 Nocturnes 





Nocturne in Black and Gold: The p. 187 (Mrs. S. Unter- 


Falling Rocket.) 20.4) 2s myer) 
Cremorne Gardens .... . . . . (Metropolitan Museum, 
N.Y.) 


An Orange Note: Sweet Shop. 


INDEX 


Abbey, Edwin A., 37 
Adam and Eve Tavern, 153 
Adams, Clifford, 72 


Alexander, Portrait of Miss, 
109, 124, 137-138, 139, 
238 

“* Americaine, La Belle,’’ 134, 
237, 238 

Appian, 152 


Amsterdam Canal, 154 
Annual Review at ‘Spithead, 157 
Armstrong, 219 
Arrangements, 21, 116, 129 
Artist's Mother, Portrait of the, 
8, 21, 29, 31, 41, 76, 90, 
109, 124, 136, 137, 143, 
144-146, 176, 234 
At the Piano, 3, 17, 122-123 
Aubrey, 110 
Avery, S. P., 


Bacher, Otto H., 155-156, 221 

Balleroy, De, 17 

Balzac, 94 

Barber, The, 158 

Battersea Bridge, 153 

Baudelaire, 17 

Bayliss, Wyke, 190 

Becquet, 153 

“‘ Belle Dame Paresseuse, La,” 
175 

“« Belle New-Y orkaise, La,” 175 

Besnard, 85, 89 

Bing, 45 

Binyon, Laurence, 210 

Blue Wave, The; Biarritz, 42 

come 69 

Bognor, 4 

Boldini, 138, 230, 236 


219 


Bonvin, 17 

Bracquemond, 17, 18 

Burne-Jones, 72, 193, 236 

Butterfly Monogram, The, 39- 
41, 56-57 


Cadogan Pier, 162 

Campbell, Portrait of Lady 
Archibald, 3, 4, 5, 27, 
124, 128. 187; 238 

Canaletto, 151 

Canfield, R. A., 73, 128 

Caprice, 177 

Caprices, 21 

Caravaggio, 93 

Carlyle, Thomas, 23, 110, 138 

Carlyle, Portrait of Thomas, 8, 
76, 109, 136, 137, 143, 144 

Carriére, 69, 90, 96 

Carte, D’ Oyle, 110 

Casanova, 196 

Cassatt, Portrait of Mme., 124 

Cazin, 18, 68, 69 

Cellini, Benvenuto, 196, 231 

Cernuschi, 45 

Cézanne, 247 

Champfleury, 17 

Chandler, Rob, 104 

Chardin, 87 

Chase, William M., 191, 201 

Ste ee 55, 68, 69, 76, 202, 
2 


Chelsea, 3, 70, 153 
Cheret, 47 

Chevalet Pieces, 29 
Chevreul, 87 

Child, Theodore, 191 
Church, F. E., 76 
Cimabue, 35 


267 


268 


Clews, 247 

Colarossi, 42 

Collins, Wilkie, 187 

““ Confidences dans le Jardin, 
Les,” 175 

Constable, 90, 134, 203 

Corder, Portrait of Rose, 124, 
128-129, 137 

Cordier, 17 

Corot, 69 

Courbet, 17, 18, 42, 48, 64, 79 

“* Cuisine, La,’’ 149 


Dabo, Leon, 34, 90 

Dagnan-—Bouveret, 69 

Dam Wood, The, 162 

Dancing Girl, 173 

Dannat, 84 

Daubigny, 75 

David, 78 

Dawson, Daniel, 242 

Degas, 18, 85, 87, 89 

Delacroix, 17, 87, 133 

Delaroche, 78 

Delatre, 166 

Delonney, 150 

Denton, Watts, 221 

Doorway, 154 

Drouet, 219 

Drouet, ’ Portrait of, 153 

Du Maurier, 16, 192, 218, 219 

Duran, Carolus, oe 

Duranty, 17 

Diirer, 147, 148, 203 

Duret, Theodore, of; 126, 173 

Duret, Portrait of Theodore, 
124, 136, 1387, 138, 139, 
143 

Duveneck, Frank, 190 


Eden, Sir William, 190, 191 

Elsheimer, 94 

Etchings, ", 27, 28, 66, 116, 
149-154, 158-162, 166- 
167 

Eugenie, Empress, 16, 18 

Early Morning, 175 


Index 


Falling Rocket, The, 24, 58-60 

Fantin-Latour, 13, 16, 17, 172, 
229 

Flaubert, 80 

Ford, Sheridan, 30, 100, 182, 
195 

Fortuny, 236 

Fragonard, 133 

France, Anatole, 208 

Freer, Charles W., 36, 37, 50, 
229 

Frith, W. P., 191 

Fromentin, 186 

Fuller, 239 

Fumette, 17 

Fur Jacket, The, 124, 128, 137, 
238 


Gainsborough, 138, 203 

Garden, The, 66, 151 

“Gentle Art of Making Ene- 
mies, The,” 8, 30, 40, 182 

Girl on a Couch, 153 

Gleyre, Charles, 12, 41-42 

Godwin, Edwin W., 8, 37 

Golden Screen, The, ’50, 51 

Goncourt, Edmond and Jules 


de, 45, 80, 206 
Goya, "79 
Gozzolli, 124, 125 


Grain, Corney, 108 

Grand Gallery of the Lowvre, 
The, 174 

Gray, Walter, 226 

Greaves, 227 

Guimet, 45 

Guthrie, Sir James, 37 


Haden, F. Seymour, 9, 17, 44, 
122, 155, 190 

Hals, Franz, 79, 91, 122, 134, 
141 


Hamerton, P. G., 153, 190 

Harmonies, 21, 28, 29, 44, 116, 
118, 129, 178 

Harpignies, 18 

Harrison, Alexander, 225 

Harunobu, 147, 148 


Index 


269 








Hawkins, C. R., 191, 235 

Hawthorne, 247 

Hecker, Frank J., 44 

Heffernan, Joanna, 51-52 

Heine, Heinrich, 49, 151 | 

Hellew, 230 

Helmholtz, 87 

Henley, Portraits of Mr. and 
Mrs. W. E., 176 

Henner, 69, 93 

Henri, Robert, 91, 247 

Heyse, Paul, 206 

Herrick, 172 

Hiroshige, 40, 51, 53, 62, 66, 67 

Hogarth, 37, 203 

Hokusai, 148 

Homer, Winslow, 239 

Horsley, R. A., 177 

Hotel de Ville at Loches, 151 

House Beautijul, see White 
House 

Huddleston, Judge, 194 

Huth, Portrait of Mrs., 124, 
137 


Ingres, 12, 64, 78, 147 

Inness, 201 

Ionides, Luke, 218 

Irving as Philip II., Portratt 
of Sir Henry, 124, 136 

Israels, 64, 134, 202, 236 


Jacquemart, 152 
Jameson, Mrs., 220 
Jo, 52, 153 

Johnson, John G., 49 
Jongkind, 18 

Julian, 42 


Keene, Charles, 195 
Kennedy, 192 
Khnopfi, 90 
Kiyonaga, 46 
Klinger, 153 


Lalanne, 152 

Lalouette, Madame, 13 

Lange-Leizen of the Six Marks, 
49, 50 

Lannion, A, 178 


Lautrec, Toulouse, 47 

Lavery, John, 37; 90 

Legros, 13, 16, 17, 191 

Leighton, Sir Frederick, 64, 69, 
191, 192, 193 

Lenbach, 83, 236 

Ustsetts da Vinci, 16, 79, 90, 
2 

Lessing, 186 

Leyland, F. R., 9, 22, 54, 103, 
104, 105, 157, 190, 211, 
223 

Leyland, Portrait of Florence, 
124, 129-130, 134, 139 

Leyland, Portrait of F. R., 124, 
127-128, 140, 1438 

Lime Burner, The, 66 

Lindsey, Sir Coutts, 193, 194, 

Lion’s Wharf, 153 

Inthographs, 8, 27, 29, 172-178 

Little Mast, The, 158 

Inttle Nude Reading, The, 178 

Little Pool, The, 162 

Little Rose of Lyme Regis, 175 

Little Venice, 151 

Inttle Wapping, 162 

Lnttle White Girl, The, 49, 52- 
53, 123 

Locksmith of the Dragon Square, 
The, 175 

London Bridge, 158 

Long Lagoon, The, 162 

Lorraine, Claude, 151 

Ludovici, A, 224 

Luks, 247 

Luxembourg Gardens, The, 174 


‘© Maison Jaune, La,’”’ 178 

‘““ Maison Rouge & Paimpol, 
La,’ 178 

Makart, 134 

Mallarmé, Stéphane, 176, 206, 
209 


Mallarmé, Portrait of Stéphane, 
175-176 

Mancini, 247 

Manet, 17, 18, 19, 87, 90, 141, 
2 243 


? 


270 


Index 








Maniz, Paul, 19 

“M archande de Moutarde, La,” 
149 

Marines, 29 

Maris, 71, 247 

Martin, Homer, 239 

Master Smith, The, 175 

‘‘ Maud,”’ 110 

Maupassant, Guy de, 206 

Max, Gabriel, 124 

McCullough, George, 229 

Memling, 133 

Menpes, Mortimer, 195, 197, 
222 


Meredith, George, 3, 23 

“« Mére Gérard, La,” 17, 149 

Meux, Portraits of Lady, 27, 
124, 133, 137 

Meyrion, 153, 154 

Millais, 193 

Model resting, The, 153, 178 

Monet, 75, 79, 87, 90, 141, 
142, 204, 244 

Montesquiou de 
Comte, 195, 237 

Montesquiou de Fezensac, Por- 
traits of Comte, 27, 142- 
143, 176 

Monticelli, 136, 247 

Moore, Albert, 229 

Moore, George, 191 

Morning Call, The, see Music 
Room, The 

Morris, William, 100-102 

Murger, Henri, 13 

Music Room, The, 42, 44 


Fezensac, 


Napoleon IIT, 18 

Nocturnes, 21, 24-25, 28, 29, 
40, 59-61, 67, 71-80, 118, 
193, 226-228 

Notes, 21, 28, 29, 118 


Ocean, The, 39, 67 
Old Battersea Bridge, 3, 59, 67, 


70 
Old Hungerford Bridge, 162 


On the Balcony (Terrace), 50, 
54-55, 70, 154 
Outomaro, 46, 49, 54, 64 


Palace, 154 

Palmer, Emma, 216 

Pantheon, 174 

Pastels, 7, 28, 178-179 

Peacock Room, 21, 54, 103, 
104-105, 211 

Peladan, Mérodack, 147 

Pelligrini, Carlo, 195 

Pennell, Joseph, 105, 125, 139, 
153, 157, 166-167, 196, 
216, 226, 229, 230 

Pennell, Portraits of Mr. and 
Mrs. Joseph, 176 

Pennington, Harper, 107, 211 

‘“ Pepys’ Diary,” 9 

Philip, John Bernie, 8 

Philip, Portrait of Miss, 176 

Pinturicchio, 133 

Pissaro, 18. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 11 

Pool, The, 151 

Price’s Candle Works, 151 

Princess of the Porcelain Land, 
50, 54, 65, 103, 123 

Prinsep, Val, 191, 223 

Prudhon, 93 


Quilter, Harry, 113-114, 190 


Raffaelli, Jean Francois, 6, 86, 
124, 153 

Raphael, 91, 147, 246 

Regamey, 45 

Reid, 247 

Rembrandt, 18, 79, 81, 82, 91, 
95, 98, 149, 152, 199, 203, 
246 

Renoir, 89, 95, 247 

Ribera, 93 

Ribot, 16, 134 

Riva, The, 158 


! Robertson, Graham, 128 


Index 


271 


SSS 


Rodin, 94 

Rood, Ogden, 87 

Rops, 153 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 23, 
34, 54, 191, 221 

Rossetti, W. M., 103, 228 

Rossi, Mme. Carmen, 33 

Rousseau, 75 

Rowley, 219 

Roybet, 134 

Rubens, 13, 65, 133, 219 

Ruskin, John, 24, 58-60, 72, 
87, 117, 151, 177, 193-194 

Ryder, 71, 201 


San Biagio, 151 

Sarasate, Pablo de, 22, 110, 
113, 195 

Sarasate, Portrait of Pablo de, 
27, 97, 124, 136, 139-140, 
145 

Sargent, 84, 141, 201 

Scene in Alsatian Village, 150 

Schalcken, 82 

Segantini, 236, 247 

Sharaku, 46 

Shunsho, 46 

Sickert, Portrait of Walter, 176 

Silent Canal, The, 153 

Singer, H. W., 196 

* Soupe & Trois Sous,” 153 

Southampton Docks, 153 

Southampton Water, 70 

Spartali, Christie, 54 

Spencer, Herbert, 85 

Starr, Sidney, 140 

Steichen, 94 

Stevens, 42, 43-44, 103, 123 

St. Mark’s, Venice, 70 

Stott, 191 

Street at Saverne, 150 

Studd, Arthur, 49 

‘Sutherland, 106 

Swinburne, 23, 53,191 

Symphony in White, A, 19, 42, 
50, 189, see also Woman 
in White 

Symphonies, 21, 39, 40, 42 


Tadema, Alma, 42 

Taine, H., 81 

Tanyu, 148 

Tarbell, 247 

Taylor, Tom, 190 

“Ten O’clock,”’ 8, 61, 182, 186, 
198-200, 251 

Terborg, 93 

Thayer, Abbott, 201, 239 

Thomas, Perey, 225 

Thomas, Ralph, 229 

Thompson, Sir H., 22 

Tintoretto, 65 

Tissot, 12, 95, 133, 134 

Titian, 65, 81, 91, 95, 130, 133, 
168 

Tryon, 68, 69 

Turner, 75, 87, 151 


Unsafe Tenement, 153 
Valparaiso Harbour, 20-21, 59, 
70 


Vanderbilt, George W., 37, 230 

Van der Helst, 18 

Van Dyke, 79, 82, 122 

Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuy- 
ler, 167 

Variations, 21 

Velasquez, 11, 42, 79, 95, 97, 
124-125, 132, 134, 142, 
192, 203, 231, 243 

Velvet Dress, The, 162 

Vermeer, 18 

Vernet, 78 

Veronese, 168, 169, 246 

Veyrasset, 153 

“ Vieille aux Loques, La,” 149 

View on the Thames, 173 

Vollon, 18 


Watteau, 87 
Way, Thomas, 174, 176, 229 
Wedmore, Frederick, 166, 174, 
190 
Westminster Bridge, 70 
Whistler George Washi 
9-11 


272 


Whistler, James (Abbott) Mc- 
Neill 


Private Life, 8-38, 214-218, 
234 

Birth, 9 

Youth, 9-11 

Marriage, 8, 32 

In Russia, 10-11 

At West Point, 11-12, 16 

Student Life in Paris, 12-17, 
41-43 

In London, 6-7, 17, 19, 21- 
26, 27, 36-37 

In Paris, 6-7, 19, 28-36 

In Venice, 7, 26-27, 151-152 

In Holland, 7, 18, 36 

In South America, 20-21, 74 

Financial Difficulties, 26-27 

His Art School, 33-35 

Japanese Influence, 45-57 

Butterfly Monogram, 39-41, 
56-57 

Whistler’s Portraits of Himself, 

219, 228-230 


Index 


Whistler, William, 214 

White Girl, The, see Symphony 
in White, A 

White House, The, 8, 22-23, 
106-109, 113 

White, Stanford, i118 

Whitman, 204 

Whittemore, John G., 50 

Wilde, Oscar, 25-26, 192 

Wine Glass, The, 153 

Woman in White, 49, 52, 123, 
186-187, 229 

Wuerpel, E. H., 28 - 


Yacht Race, The, 188 

Yellow Buskin, The, see Camp- 
bell, Portrait of Lady Ar- 
chibald 

Young, 87 


Zaandam, 158 
Zola, 19 
Zorn, 84, 141, 153 














“Tdi” 


